■■ 


BRARY     ^ 


/^GITY  OF 

L.FOI3NIA 

RVINE 


J 


IS- 1 


ON    THE 

STUDY  OF  CELTIC  LITERATURE 


AND   ON 


TRANSLATING  HOMER 


ON  THE  STUDY 


OF 


CELTIC    LITEBATUBE 


AND    ON 


TRANSLATING  HOMES 


BY 

MATTHEW  AKNOLD 


£efo  gorfe 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1898 

All  rights  reserved 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  Clark,  Limited,  Edinburgh. 


ON  THE 


STUDY   OF   CELTIC  LITEEATUKE 


VOL  II. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  following  remarks  on  the  study  of  Celtic  Litera- 
ture formed  the  substance  of  four  lectures  given  by 
me  last  year  and  the  year  before  in  the  chair  of 
poetry  at  Oxford.  They  were  first  published  in  the 
Cornhill  Magazine,  and  are  now  reprinted  from  thence. 
Again  and  again,  in  the  course  of  them,  I  have  marked 
the  very  humble  scope  intended ;  which  is,  not  to 
treat  any  special  branch  of  scientific  Celtic  studies  (a 
task  for  which  I  am  quite  incompetent),  but  to  point 
out  the  many  directions  in  which  the  results  of  those 
studies  offer  matter  of  general  interest,  and  to  insist 
on  the  benefit  we  may  all  derive  from  knowing  the 
Celt  and  things  Celtic  more  thoroughly.  It  was  im- 
possible, however,  to  avoid  touching  on  certain  points 
of  ethnology  and  philology,  which  can  be  securely 
handled  only  by  those  who  have  made  these  sciences 
the  object  of  special  study.  Here  the  mere  literary 
critic  must  owe  his  whole  safety  to  his  tact  in  choos- 
ing authorities  to  follow,  and  whatever  he  advances 
must  be  understood  as  advanced  with  a  sense  of  the 
insecurity  which,  after  all,  attaches  to  such  a  mode  of 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

proceeding,  and  as  put  forward  provisionally,  by  way 
of  hypothesis  rather  than  of  confident  assertion. 

To  mark  clearly  to  the  reader  both  this  provisional 
character  of  much  which  I  advance,  and  my  own 
sense  of  it,  I  have  inserted,  as  a  check  upon  some  of 
the  positions  adopted  in  the  text,  notes  and  comments 
with  which  Lord  Strangford  has  kindly  furnished  me. 
Lord  Strangford  is  hardly  less  distinguished  for  know- 
ing ethnology  and  languages  so  scientifically  than  for 
knowing  so  much  of  them ;  and  his  interest,  even 
from  the  vantage-ground  of  his  scientific  knowledge, 
and  after  making  all  due  reserves  on  points  of  scien- 
tific detail,  in  my  treatment, — with  merely  the  re- 
sources and  point  of  view  of  a  literary  critic  at  my 
command, — of  such  a  subject  as  the  study  of  Celtic 
Literature,  is  the  most  encouraging  assurance  I  could 
have  received  that  my  attempt  is  not  altogether  a 
vain  one. 

Both  Lord  Strangford  and  others  whose  opinion  I 
respect  have  said  that  I  am  unjust  in  calling  Mr. 
Nash,  the  acute  and  learned  author  of  Taliesin,  or  the 
Bards  and  Druids  of  Britain,  a  "Celt-hater."  "He  is 
a  denouncer,"  says  Lord  Strangford  in  a  note  on  this 
expression,  "  of  Celtic  extravagance,  that  is  all ;  he  is 
an  anti-Philocelt,  a  very  different  thing  from  an  anti- 
Celt,  and  quite  indispensable  in  scientific  inquiry. 
As  Philoceltism  has  hitherto,— hitherto,  remember, — 
meant  nothing  but  uncritical  acceptance  and  irrational 
admiration  of  the  beloved  object's  sayings  and  doings, 
without  reference  to  truth  one  way  or  the  other,  it  is 
surely  in  the  interest  of  science  to  support  him  in  the 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

main.  In  tracing  the  workings  of  old  Celtic  leaven 
in  poems  which  embody  the  Celtic  soul  of  all  time  in  a 
mediaeval  form,  I  do  not  see  that  you  come  into  any 
necessary  opposition  with  him,  for  your  concern  is  with 
the  spirit,  his  with  the  substance  only."  I  entirely  agree 
with  almost  all  which  Lord  Strangford  here  urges, 
and  indeed,  so  sincere  is  my  respect  for  Mr.  Nash's 
critical  discernment  and  learning,  and  so  unhesitating 
my  recognition  of  the  usefulness,  in  many  respects, 
of  the  work  of  demolition  performed  by  him,  that  in 
originally  designating  him  as  a  Celt-hater,  I  hastened 
to  add,  as  the  reader  will  see  by  referring  to  the  pass- 
age,1 words  of  explanation  and  apology  for  so  calling 
him.  But  I  thought  then,  and  I  think  still,  that  Mr. 
Nash,  in  pursuing  his  work  of  demolition,  too  much 
puts  out  of  sight  the  positive  and  constructive  per- 
formance for  which  this  work  of  demolition  is  to  clear 
the  ground.  I  thought  then,  and  I  think  still,  that 
in  this  Celtic  controversy,  as  in  other  controversies, 
it  is  most  desirable  both  to  believe  and  to  profess 
that  the  work  of  construction  is  the  fruitful  and  im- 
portant work,  and  that  we  are  demolishing  only  to 
prepare  for  it.  Mr.  Nash's  scepticism  seems  to  me, — 
in  the  aspect  in  which  his  work,  on  the  whole,  shows 
it, — too  absolute,  too  stationary,  too  much  without  a 
future ;  and  this  tends  to  make  it,  for  the  non-Celtic 
part  of  his  readers,  less  fruitful  than  it  otherwise 
would  be,  and  for  his  Celtic  readers,  harsh  and  repel- 
lent. I  have  therefore  suffered  my  remarks  on  Mr. 
Nash  still  to  stand,  though  with  a  little  modification ; 

1  See  p.  2G  of  the  following  essay. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

but  I  hope  he  will  read  them  by  the  light  of  these 
explanations,  and  that  he  will  believe  my  sense  of 
esteem  for  his  work  to  be  a  thousand  times  stronger 
than  my  sense  of  difference  from  it. 

To  lead  towards  solid  ground,  where  the  Celt  may 
with  legitimate  satisfaction  point  to  traces  of  the 
gifts  and  workings  of  his  race,  and  where  the  English- 
man may  find  himself  induced  to  sympathise  with 
that  satisfaction  and  to  feel  an  interest  in  it,  is  the 
design  of  all  the  considerations  urged  in  the  following 
essay.  Kindly  taking  the  will  for  the  deed,  a  Welsh- 
man and  an  old  acquaintance  of  mine,  Mr.  Hugh 
Owen,  received  my  remarks  with  so  much  cordiality, 
that  he  asked  me  to  come  to  the  Eisteddfod  last 
summer  at  Chester,  and  there  to  read  a  paper  on 
some  topic  of  Celtic  literature  or  antiquities.  In  an- 
swer to  this  flattering  proposal  of  Mr.  Owen's,  I  wrote 
him  a  letter  which  appeared  at  the  time  in  several 
newspapers,  and  of  which  the  following  extract  pre- 
serves all  that  is  of  any  importance  : — 

"  My  knowledge  of  Welsh  matters  is  so  utterly  in- 
significant that  it  would  be  impertinence  in  me,  under 
any  circumstances,  to  talk  about  those  matters  to  an 
assemblage  of  persons,  many  of  whom  have  passed 
their  lives  in  studying  them. 

"  Your  gathering  acquires  more  interest  every  year. 
Let  me  venture  to  say  that  you  have  to  avoid  two 
dangers  in  order  to  work  all  the  good  which  your 
friends  could  desire.  You  have  to  avoid  the  danger 
of  giving  offence  to  practical  men  by  retarding  the 
spread  of  the  English  language  in  the  principality. 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

I  believe  that  to  preserve  and  honour  the  Welsh  lan- 
guage and  literature  is  quite  compatible  with  not 
thwarting  or  delaying  for  a  single  hour  the  introduc- 
tion, so  undeniably  useful,  of  a  knowledge  of  English 
among  all  classes  in  Wales.  5Tou  have  to  avoid,  again, 
the  danger  of  alienating  men  of  science  by  a  blind, 
partial,  and  uncritical  treatment  of  your  national 
antiquities.  Mr.  Stephens's  excellent  book,  The  Litera- 
ture of  the  Cymry,  shows  how  perfectly  Welshmen  can 
avoid  this  danger  if  they  will. 

"  When  I  see  the  enthusiasm  these  Eisteddfods 
can  awaken  in  your  whole  people,  and  then  think  of 
the  tastes,  the  literature,  the  amusements,  of  our 
own  lower  and  middle  class,  I  am  filled  with  admira- 
tion for  you.  It  is  a  consoling  thought,  and  one 
which  history  allows  us  to  entertain,  that  nations 
disinherited  of  political  success  may  yet  leave  their 
mark  on  the  world's  progress,  and  contribute  power- 
fully to  the  civilisation  of  mankind.  We  in  England 
have  come  to  that  point  when  the  continued  advance 
and  greatness  of  our  nation  is  threatened  by  one 
cause,  and  one  cause  above  all.  Far  more  than  by 
the  helplessness  of  an  aristocracy  whose  day  is  fast 
coming  to  an  end,  far  more  than  by  the  rawness  of 
a  lower  class  whose  day  is  only  just  beginning,  we 
are  imperilled  by  what  I  call  the  'Philistinism'  of 
our  middle  class.  On  the  side  of  beauty  and  taste, 
vulgarity ;  on  the  side  of  morals  and  feeling,  coarse- 
ness ;  on  the  side  of  mind  and  spirit,  unintelligence, 
— this  is  Philistinism.  Now,  then,  is  the  moment 
for  the  greater  delicacy  and  spirituality  of  the  Celtic 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

peoples  who  are  blended  with  us,  if  it  be  but  wisely- 
directed,  to  make  itself  prized  and  honoured.  In  a 
certain  measure  the  children  of  Taliesin  and  Ossian 
have  now  an  opportunity  for  renewing  the  famous 
feat  of  the  Greeks,  and  conquering  their  conquerors. 
No  service  England  can  render  the  Celts  by  giving 
you  a  share  in  her  many  good  qualities,  can  surpass 
that  which  the  Celts  can  at  this  moment  render 
England,  by  communicating  to  us  some  of  theirs." 

Now  certainly,  in  that  letter,  written  to  a  Welsh- 
man and  on  the  occasion  of  a  Welsh  festival,  I 
enlarged  on  the  merits  of  the  Celtic  spirit  and  of  its 
works,  rather  than  on  their  demerits.  It  would  have 
been  offensive  and  inhuman  to  do  otherwise.  When 
an  acquaintance  asks  you  to  write  his  father's  epitaph, 
you  do  not  generally  seize  that  opportunity  for  saying 
that  his  father  was  blind  of  one  eye,  and  had  an  un- 
fortunate habit  of  not  paying  his  tradesmen's  bills. 
But  the  weak  side  of  Celtism  and  of  its  Celtic  glori- 
fiers,  the  danger  against  which  they  have  to  guard, 
is  clearly  indicated  in  that  letter ;  and  in  the  remarks 
reprinted  in  this  volume, — remarks  which  were  the 
original  cause  of  Mr.  Owen's  writinsr  to  me,  and 
must  have  been  fully  present  to  his  mind  when  he 
read  my  letter, — the  shortcomings  both  of  the  Celtic 
race,  and  of  the  Celtic  students  of  its  literature  and 
antiquities,  are  unreservedly  marked,  and,  so  far  as 
is  necessary,  blamed.1  It  was,  indeed,  not  my 
purpose  to  make  blame  the  chief  part  of  what  I 
said;  for   the   Celts,   like   other  people,    are   to   be 

1  See  particularly  pp.  9,  10,  11,  of  the  following  essay. 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

meliorated  rather  by  developing  their  gifts  than 
by  chastising  their  defects.  The  wise  man,  says 
Spinoza  admirably,  "de  humana  impotentia  non 
nisi  parce  loqui  curabit,  at  largiter  de  humana  virtute 
seu  potentia."  But  so  far  as  condemnation  of  Celtic 
failure  was  needful  towards  preparing  the  way  for 
the  growth  of  Celtic  virtue,  I  used  condemnation. 

The  Times,  however,  prefers  a  shorter  and  sharper 
method  of  dealing  with  the  Celts,  and  in  a  couple  of 
leading  articles,  having  the  Chester  Eisteddfod  and 
my  letter  to  Mr.  Hugh  Owen  for  their  text,  it  de- 
veloped with  great  frankness,  and  in  its  usual 
forcible  style,  its  own  views  for  the  amelioration  of 
Wales  and  its  people.  Cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do 
good,  was  the  upshot  of  its  exhortations  to  the 
Welsh;  by  evil,  the  Times  understanding  all  things 
Celtic,  and  by  good,  all  things  English.  "  The  Welsh 
language  is  the  curse  of  Wales.  Its  prevalence,  and 
the  ignorance  of  English  have  excluded,  and  even 
now  exclude  the  Welsh  people  from  the  civilisation 
of  their  English  neighbours.  An  Eisteddfod  is  one 
of  the  most  mischievous  and  selfish  pieces  of  senti- 
mentalism  which  could  possibly  be  perpetrated.  It 
is  simply  a  foolish  interference  with  the  natural 
progress  of  civilisation  and  prosperity.  If  it  is 
desirable  that  the  Welsh  should  talk  English,  it  is 
monstrous  folly  to  encourage  them  in  a  loving 
fondness  for  their  old  language.  Not  only  the 
energy  and  power,  but  the  intelligence  and  music 
of  Europe  have  come  mainly  from  Teutonic  sources, 
and  this  glorification  of  everything  Celtic,  if  it  were 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

not  pedantry,  would  be  sheer  ignorance.  The  sooner 
all  Welsh  specialities  disappear  from  the  face  of  the 
earth  the  better." 

And  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  myself,  as  so  often 
happens  to  me  at  the  hands  of  my  own  countrymen, 
was  cruelly  judged  by  the  Times,  and  most  severely 
treated.  What  I  said  to  Mr.  Owen  about  the  spread 
of  the  English  language  in  Wales  being  quite  com- 
patible with  preserving  and  honouring  the  Welsh 
language  and  literature,  was  tersely  set  down  as 
"arrant  nonsense,"  and  I  was  characterised  as  "a 
sentimentalist  who  talks  nonsense  about  the  children 
of  Taliesin  and  Ossian,  and  whose  dainty  taste  re- 
quires something  more  flimsy  than  the  strong  sense 
and  sturdy  morality  of  his  fellow  Englishmen." 

As  I  said  before,  I  am  unhappily  inured  to  having 
these  harsh  interpretations  put  by  my  fellow  English- 
men upon  what  I  write,  and  I  no  longer  cry  out  about 
it.  And  then,  too,  I  have  made  a  study  of  the 
Corinthian  or  leading  article  style,  and  know  its  exi- 
gences, and  that  they  are  no  more  to  be  quarrelled 
with  than  the  law  of  gravitation.  So,  for  my  part, 
when  I  read  these  asperities  of  the  Times,  my  mind 
did  not  dwell  very  much  on  my  own  concern  in  them ; 
but  what  I  said  to  myself,  as  I  put  the  newspaper 
down,  was  this  :  "  Behold  England's  difficulty  in  govern- 
ing Ireland  !  " 

I  pass  by  the  dauntless  assumption  that  the 
agricultural  peasant  whom  we  in  England,  without 
Eisteddfods,  succeed  in  developing,  is  so  much  finer 
a  product  of  civilisation  than  the  Welsh  peasant,  re- 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

tarded  by  these  "pieces  of  sentimentalism."     I  will 
be  content  to  suppose  that  our  "strong  sense  and 
sturdy  morality  "  are  as  admirable  and  as  universal  as 
the  Times  pleases.     But  even  supposing  this,  I  will 
ask  :  Did  any  one  ever  hear  of  strong  sense  and  sturdy 
morality  being  thrust  down  other  people's  throats  in 
this  fashion  1    Might  not  these  divine  English  gifts, 
and  the  English  language  in  which  they  are  preached, 
have  a  better  chance  of  making  their  way  among  the 
poor  Celtic  heathen,  if  the  English  apostle  delivered 
his  message  a  little  more  agreeably  1    There  is  nothing 
like  love  and  admiration  for  bringing  people  to  a  like- 
ness  with   what   they  love    and    admire ;    but    the 
Englishman  seems  never  to  dream  of  employing  these 
influences  upon  a  race  he  wants  to  fuse  with  himself. 
He  employs  simply  material  interests  for  his  work  of 
fusion ;  and,  beyond  these,  nothing  except  scorn  and 
rebuke.     Accordingly  there  is  no  vital  union  between 
him  and  the  races  he  has  annexed ;  and  while  France 
can  truly  boast  of  her  "  magnificent  unity,"  a  unity  of 
spirit  no  less  than  of  name  between  all  the  people 
who  compose  her,  in  England  the  Englishman  proper 
is  in  union  of  spirit  with  no  one  except  other  English- 
men proper  like  himself.    His  Welsh  and  Irish  fellow- 
citizens  are  hardly  more  amalgamated  with  him  now 
than  they  were  when  Wales  and  Ireland  were  first 
conquered,  and  the  true  unity  of   even  these  small 
islands  has  yet  to  be  achieved.     When  these  papers 
of   mine   on   the  Celtic  genius    and    literature   first 
appeared  in  the  Comhitt  Magazine,  they  brought  me, 
as  was  natural,  many  communications   from  Welsh- 


XVI  INTKODUCTION. 

men  and  Irishmen  having  an  interest  in  the  subject : 
and  one  could  not  but  be  painfully  struck,  in  reading 
these  communications,  to  see  how  profound  a  feeling 
of  aversion  and  severance  from  the  English  they  in 
general  manifested.  Who  can  be  surprised  at  it, 
when  he  observes  the  strain  of  the  Times  in  the 
articles  just  quoted,  and  remembers  that  this  is  the 
characteristic  strain  of  the  Englishman  in  commenting 
on  whatsoever  is  not  himself?  And  then,  with  our 
boundless  faith  in  machinery,  we  English  expect  the 
Welshman  as  a  matter  of  course  to  grow  attached 
to  us,  because  we  invite  him  to  do  business  with 
us,  and  let  him  hold  any  number  of  public  meet- 
ings and  publish  all  the  newspapers  he  likes ! 
When  shall  we  learn  that  what  attaches  people  to 
us  is  the  spirit  we  are  of,  and  not  the  machinery  we 
employ  1 

Last  year  there  was  a  project  of  holding  a  Breton 
Eisteddfod  at  Quimper  in  Brittany,  and  the  French 
Home  Secretary,  whether  wishing  to  protect  the 
magnificent  unity  of  France  from  inroads  of  Bre- 
tonism,  or  fearing  lest  the  design  should  be  used  in 
furtherance  of  Legitimist  intrigues,  or  from  whatever 
motive,  issued  an  order  which  prohibited  the  meeting. 
If  Mr.  Walpole  had  issued  an  order  prohibiting  the 
Chester  Eisteddfod,  all  the  Englishmen  from  Corn- 
wall to  John  0'  Groat's  House  would  have  rushed  to 
the  rescue  ;  and  our  strong  sense  and  sturdy  morality 
would  never  have  stopped  gnashing  their  teeth  and 
rending  their  garments  till  the  prohibition  was 
rescinded.     What  a  pity  our  strong  sense  and  sturdy 


INTRODUCTION.  XVll 

morality  fail  to  perceive  that  words  like  those  of 
the  Times  create  a  far  keener  sense  of  estrangement 
and  dislike  than  acts  like  those  of  the  French 
Minister  !  Acts  like  those  of  the  French  Minister 
are  attributed  to  reasons  of  State,  and  the  Govern- 
ment is  held  blamable  for  them,  not  the  French 
people.  Articles  like  those  of  the  Times  are  attri- 
buted to  the  want  of  sympathy  and  of  sweetness  of 
disposition  in  the  English  nature,  and  the  whole 
English  people  gets  the  blame  of  them.  And  deser- 
vedly ;  for  from  some  such  ground  of  want  of 
sympathy  and  sweetness  in  the  English  nature,  do 
articles  like  those  of  the  Times  come,  and  to  some 
such  ground  do  they  make  appeal.  The  sympathetic 
and  social  virtues  of  the  French  nature,  on  the  other 
hand,  actually  repair  the  breaches  made  by  oppressive 
deeds  of  the  Government,  and  create,  among  popula- 
tions joined  with  France  as  the  Welsh  and  Irish  are 
joined  with  England,  a  sense  of  liking  and  attachment 
towards  the  French  people.  The  French  Government 
may  discourage  the  German  language  in  Alsace 
and  prohibit  Eisteddfods  in  Brittany ;  but  the 
Journal  des  Debats  never  treats  German  music  and 
poetry  as  mischievous  lumber,  nor  tells  the  Bretons 
that  the  sooner  all  Breton  specialities  disappear  from 
the  face  of  the  earth  the  better.  Accordingly,  the 
Bretons  and  Alsatians  have  come  to  feel  themselves  a 
part  of  France,  and  to  feel  pride  in  bearing  the  French 
name ;  while  the  Welsh  and  Irish  obstinately  refuse 
to  amalgamate  with  us,  and  will  not  admire  the 
Englishman  as   he   admires  himself,  however   much 


XVlll  INTRODUCTION. 

the  Times  may  scold  them  and  rate  them,  and  assure 
them  there  is  nobody  on  earth  so  admirable. 

And  at  what  a  moment  does  it  assure  them  of 
this,  good  heavens  !  At  a  moment  when  the  ice  is 
breaking  up  in  England,  and  we  are  all  beginning  at 
last  to  see  how  much  real  confusion  and  insufficiency 
it  covered ;  when,  whatever  may  be  the  merits, — and 
they  are  great,— of  the  Englishman  and  of  his  strong 
sense  and  sturdy  moralitj^,  it  is  growing  more  and 
more  evident  that,  if  he  is  to  endure  and  advance,  he 
must  transform  himself,  must  add  something  to  his 
strong  sense  and  sturdy  morality,  or  at  least  must 
give  to  these  excellent  gifts  of  his  a  new  development. 
My  friend,  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  says,  in  his  eloquent 
way,  that  England  is  the  favourite  of  Heaven.  Far 
be  it  from  me  to  say  that  England  is  not  the  favourite 
of  Heaven ;  but  at  this  moment  she  reminds  me 
more  of  what  the  prophet  Isaiah  calls,  "  a  bull  in  a 
net."  She  has  satisfied  herself  in  all  departments 
with  clap- trap  and  routine  so  long,  and  she  is  now  so 
astounded  at  finding  they  will  not  serve  her  turn  any 
longer !  And  this  is  the  moment,  when  Englishism 
pure  and  simple,  which  with  all  its  fine  qualities 
managed  always  to  make  itself  singularly  unattrac- 
tive, is  losing  that  imperturbable  faith  in  its  untrans- 
formed  self  which  at  any  rate  made  it  imposing, — this 
is  the  moment  when  our  great  organ  tells  the  Celts 
that  everything  of  theirs  not  English  is  "  simply 
a  foolish  interference  with  the  natural  progress  of 
civilisation  and  prosperity ; "  and  poor  Talhaiarn, 
venturing  to  remonstrate,  is   commanded  "to  drop 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

his  outlandish  title,  and  to  refuse  even  to  talk  Welsh 
in  Wales  ! " 

But  let  us  leave  the  dead  to  bury  their  dead,  and 
let  us  who  are  alive  go  on  unto  perfection.  Let  the 
Celtic  members  of  this  empire  consider  that  they  too 
have  to  transform  themselves ;  and  though  the  sum- 
mons to  transform  themselves  be  often  conveyed 
harshly  and  brutally,  and  with  the  cry  to  root  up 
their  Avheat  as  well  as  their  tares,  yet  that  is  no 
reason  why  the  summons  should  not  be  followed  so 
far  as  their  tares  are  concerned.  Let  them  consider 
that  they  are  inextricably  bound  up  with  us,  and 
that,  if  the  suggestions  in  the  following  pages  have 
any  truth,  we  English,  alien  and  uncongenial  to  our 
Celtic  partners  as  we  may  have  hitherto  shown  our- 
selves, have  notwithstanding,  beyond  perhaps  any 
other  nation,  a  thousand  latent  springs  of  possible 
sympathy  with  them.  Let  them  consider  that  new 
ideas  and  forces  are  stirring  in  England,  that  day  by 
day  these  new  ideas  and  forces  gain  in  power,  and 
that  almost  every  one  of  them  is  the  friend  of  the 
Celt  and  not  his  enemy.  And,  whether  our  Celtic 
partners  will  consider  this  or  no,  at  any  rate  let  us 
ourselves,  all  of  us  who  are  proud  of  being  the 
ministers  of  these  new  ideas,  work  incessantly  to 
procure  for  them  a  wider  and  more  fruitful  applica- 
tion ;  and  to  remove  the  main  ground  of  the  Celt's 
alienation  from  the  Englishman,  by  substituting,  in 
place  of  that  type  of  Englishman  with  whom  alone 
the  Celt  has  too  long  been  familiar,  a  new  type,  more 
intelligent,  more  gracious,  and  more  humane. 


ON    THE    STUDY 


OF 


CELTIC  LITERATURE. 

"  They  went  forth  to  the  war,  but  they  always  fell." 

Ossian. 

The  summer  before  last  I  spent  some  weeks  at  Llan- 
dudno, on  the  Welsh  coast.  The  best  lodging-houses 
at  Llandudno  look  eastward,  towards  Liverpool ;  and 
from  that  Saxon  hive  swarms  are  incessantly  issuing, 
crossing  the  bay,  and  taking  possession  of  the  beach 
and  the  lodging-houses.  Guarded  by  the  Great  and 
Little  Orme's  Head,  and  alive  with  the  Saxon  invaders 
from  Liverpool,  the  eastern  bay  is  an  attractive  point 
of  interest,  and  many  visitors  to  Llandudno  never 
contemplate  anything  else.  But,  putting  aside  the 
charm  of  the  Liverpool  steamboats,  perhaps  the  view, 
on  this  side,  a  little  dissatisfies  one  after  a  while ;  the 
horizon  wants  mystery,  the  sea  wants  beauty,  the 
coast  wants  verdure,  and  has  a  too  bare  austereness 
and  aridity.  At  last  one  turns  round  and  looks  west- 
ward. Everything  is  changed.  Over  the  mouth  of 
the  Conway  and  its  sands  is  the  eternal  softness  and 
mild  light  of  the  west;  the  low  line  of  the  mystic 

VOL.  II.  &  B 


2  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Anglesey,  and  the  precipitous  Penmaenmawr,  and 
the  great  group  of  Carnedd  Llewelyn  and  Carnedd 
David  and  their  brethren  fading  away,  hill  behind 
hill,  in  an  aerial  haze,  make  the  horizon  ;  between 
the  foot  of  Penmaenmawr  and  the  bending  coast  of 
Anglesey,  the  sea,  a  silver  stream,  disappears  one 
knows  not  whither.  On  this  side,  Wales, — Wales, 
where  the  past  still  lives,  where  every  place  has  its 
tradition,  every  name  its  poetry,  and  where  the 
people,  the  genuine  people,  still  knows  this  past,  this 
tradition,  this  poetry,  and  lives  with  it,  and  clings  to 
it;  while,  alas,  the  prosperous  Saxon  on  the  other 
side,  the  invader  from  Liverpool  and  Birkenhead,  has 
long  ago  forgotten  his.  And  the  promontory  where 
Llandudno  stands  is  the  very  centre  of  this  tradition  ; 
it  is  Creuddyn,  the  bloody  city,  where  every  stone  has 
its  story ;  there,  opposite  its  decaying  rival,  Conway 
Castle,  is  Diganwy,  not  decaying  but  long  since 
utterly  decayed,  some  crumbling  foundations  on  a 
crag-top  and  nothing  more  ; — Diganwy,  where  Mael- 
gwyn  shut  up  Elphin,  and  where  Taliesin  came  to 
free  him.  Below,  in  a  fold  of  the  hill,  is  Llan-rhos, 
the  church  of  the  marsh,  where  the  same  Mael-gwyn, 
a  British  prince  of  real  history,  a  bold  and  licentious 
chief,  the  original,  it  is  said,  of  Arthur's  Lancelot, 
shut  himself  up  in  the  church  to  avoid  the  Yellow 
Plague,  and  peeped  out  through  a  hole  in  the  door, 
and  saw  the  monster  and  died.  Behind  among  the 
woods,  is  Glod-daeth,  the  place  of  feasting,  where  the 
bards  were  entertained ;  and  farther  away,  up  the 
valley  of  the  Conway  towards  Llanrwst,  is  the  Lake 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  3 

of  Ceirionydd  and  Taliesin's  grave.  Or,  again,  look- 
ing seawards  and  Anglesey- wards,  you  have  Pen-mon, 
Seiriol's  isle  and  priory,  where  Mael-gwyn  lies  buried ; 
you  have  the  Sands  of  Lamentation  and  Llys  Helig, 
Heilig's  Mansion,  a  mansion  under  the  waves,  a  sea- 
buried  palace  and  realm.  Hac  ibat  Simois ;  hie  est 
Sigeia  tellus. 

As  I  walked  up  and  down,  last  August  year,  look- 
ing at  the  waves  as  they  washed  this  Sigeian  land 
which  has  never  had  its  Homer,  and  listening  with 
curiosity  to  the  strange,  unfamiliar  speech  of  its  old  pos- 
sessors' obscure  descendants, — bathing  people,  vege- 
table-sellers, and  donkey  boys, — who  were  all  about 
me,  suddenly  I  heard,  through  the  stream  of  unknown 
Welsh,  words,  not  English,  indeed,  but  still  familiar. 
They  came  from  a  French  nursery-maid  with  some 
children.  Profoundly  ignorant  of  her  relationship, 
this  Gaulish  Celt  moved  among  her  British  cousins, 
speaking  her  polite  neo-Latin  tongue,  and  full  of 
compassionate  contempt,  probably,  for  the  Welsh 
barbarians  and  their  jargon.  What  a  revolution  was 
here  !  How  had  the  star  of  this  daughter  of  Gomer 
waxed,  while  the  star  of  these  Cymry,  his  sons,  had 
waned !  What  a  difference  of  fortune  in  the  two, 
since  the  days  when,  speaking  the  same  language, 
they  left  their  common  dwelling-place  in  the  heart  of 
Asia;  since  the  Cimmerians  of  the  Euxine  came  in 
upon  their  western  kinsmen,  the  sons  of  the  giant 
Galates ;  since  the  sisters,  Gaul  and  Britain,  cut  the 
mistletoe  in  their  forests,  and  saw  the  coming  of 
Csesar  !     Blanc,  rouge,  rocher,  champ,  e'glise,  seigneur, — 


4  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

these  words,  by  which  the  Gallo-Eoman  Celt  now 
names  white,  and  red,  and  rock,  and  field,  and  church, 
and  lord,  are  no  part  of  the  speech  of  his  true  ances- 
tors, they  are  words  he  has"  learnt ;  but  since  he 
learned  them  they  have  had  a  world-wide  success,  and 
we  all  teach  them  to  our  children,  and  armies  speak- 
ing them  have  domineered  in  every  city  of  that  Ger- 
many by  which  the  British  Celt  was  broken,  and  in 
the  train  of  these  armies,  Saxon  auxiliaries,  a  humbled 
contingent,  have  been  fain  to  follow; — the  poor  Welsh- 
man still  says,  in  the  genuine  tongue  of  his  ancestors,1 

1  Lord  Strangford  remarks  on  this  passage  : — "Your  Gomer 
and  your  Cimmerians  are  of  course  only  lay  figures,  to  be  ac- 
cepted in  the  rhetorical  and  subjective  sense.  As  such  I  accept 
them,  but  I  enter  a  protest  against  the  '  genuine  tongue  of  his 
ancestors. '  Modern  Celtic  tongues  are  to  the  old  Celtic  heard 
by  Julius  CiBsar,  broadly  speaking,  what  the  modern  Romanic 
tongues  are  to  Caesar's  own  Latin.  "Welsh,  in  fact,  is  a  detritus; 
a  language  in  the  category  of  modern  French,  or,  to  speak  less 
roughly  and  with  a  closer  approximation,  of  old  Provencal, 
not  in  the  category  of  Lithuanian,  much  less  in  the  category  of 
Basque.  By  true  inductive  research,  based  on  an  accurate 
comparison  of  such  forms  of  Celtic  speech,  oral  and  recorded,  as 
we  now  possess,  modern  philology  has,  in  so  far  as  was  possible, 
succeeded  in  restoring  certain  forms  of  the  parent  speech,  and 
in  so  doing  has  achieved  not  the  least  striking  of  its  many 
triumphs  ;  for  those  very  forms  thus  restored  have  since  been 
verified  past  all  cavil  by  their  actual  discovery  in  the  old  Gaulish 
inscriptions  recently  come  to  light.  The  phoncsis  of  Welsh  as 
it  stands  is  modern,  not  xnimitive  ;  its  grammar, — the  verbs 
excepted, — is  constructed  out  of  the  fragments  of  its  earlier 
forms,  and  its  vocabulary  is  strongly  Bomanised,  two  out  of 
the  six  words  here  given  being  Latin  of  the  Empire.  Rightly 
understood,  this  enhances  the  value  of  modern  Celtic  instead 
of  depreciating  it,  because  it  serves  to  rectify  it.  To  me  it  is  a 
wonder  that  Welsh  should  have  retained  so  much  of  its  in- 


CELTIC  LITEEATUEE.  5 

givyn,  goch,  aravj,  maes,  llan,  arglivydd ;  but  his  land  is 
a  province,  and  his  history  petty,  and  his  Saxon  sub- 
duers  scout  his  speech  as  an  obstacle  to  civilisation ; 
and  the  echo  of  all  its  kindred  in  other  lands  is  grow- 
ing every  day  fainter  and  more  feeble ;  gone  in 
Cornwall,  going  in  Brittany  and  the  Scotch  High- 
lands, going,  too,  in  Ireland; — and  there,  above  all, 
the  badge  of  the  beaten  race,  the  property  of  the 
vanquished. 

But  the  Celtic  genius  was  just  then  preparing,  in 
Llandudno,  to  have  its  hour  of  revival.  Workmen 
were  busy  in  putting  up  a  large  tent-like  wooden 
building,  which  attracted  the  eye  of  every  new- 
comer, and  which  my  little  boys  believed  (their 
wish,  no  doubt,  being  father  to  their  belief)  to  be  a 
circus.  It  turned  out,  however,  to  be  no  circus  for 
Castor  and  Pollux,  but  a  temple  for  Apollo  and  the 
Muses.  It  was  the  place  where  the  Eisteddfod,  or 
Bardic  Congress  of  Wales,  was  about  to  be  held  ;  a 
meeting  which  has  for  its  object  (I  quote  the  words 
of  its  promoters)  "  the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge, 
the  eliciting  of  native  talent,  and  the  cherishing  of 
love  of  home  and  honourable  fame  by  the  cultivation 
of  poetry,  music,  and  art."  My  little  boys  were  dis- 
appointed ;  but  I,  whose  circus  days  are  over,  I,  who 
have  a  professional  interest  in  poetry,  and  who,  also, 
hating  all  one-sidedness  and  oppression,  wish  nothing 

tegrity  under  the  iron  pressure  of  four  hundred  years  of  Koman 
dominion.  Modern  Welsh  tenacity  and  cohesive  power  under 
English  pressure  is  nothing  compared  with  what  that  must  have 
heen." 


6  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

better  than  that  the  Celtic  genius  should  be  able  to 
show  itself  to  the  world  and  to  make  its  voice  heard, 
was  delighted.  I  took  my  ticket,  and  waited  im- 
patiently for  the  day  of  opening.  The  day  came,  an 
unfortunate  one  ;  storms  of  wind,  clouds  of  dust,  an 
angry,  dirty  sea.  The  Saxons  who  arrived  by  the 
Liverpool  steamers  looked  miserable ;  even  the  Welsh 
who  arrived  by  land, — whether  they  were  discom- 
posed by  the  bad  morning,  or  by  the  monstrous  and 
crashing  tax  which  the  London  and  North- Western 
Eailway  Company  levies  on  all  whom  it  transports 
across  those  four  miles  of  marshy  peninsula  between 
Conway  and  Llandudno, — did  not  look  happy.  First 
we  went  to  the  Gorsedd,  or  preliminary  congress  for 
conferring  the  degree  of  bard.  The  Gorsedd  was 
held  in  the  open  air,  at  the  windy  corner  of  a  street, 
and  the  morning  was  not  favourable  to  open-air 
solemnities.  The  Welsh,  too,  share,  it  seems  to  me, 
with  their  Saxon  invaders,  an  inaptitude  for  show  and 
spectacle.  Show  and  spectacle  are  better  managed 
by  the  Latin  race,  and  those  whom  it  has  moulded  ; 
the  Welsh,  like  us,  are  a  little  awkward  and  resource- 
less  in  the  organisation  of  a  festival.  The  presiding 
genius  of  the  mystic  circle,  in  our  hideous  nineteenth 
century  costume  relieved  only  by  a  green  scarf,  the 
wind  drowning  his  voice  and  the  dust  powdering 
his  whiskers,  looked  thoroughly  wretched :  so  did 
the  aspirants  for  bardic  honours ;  and  I  believe, 
after  about  an  hour  of  it,  we  all  of  us,  as  we 
stood  shivering  round  the  sacred  stones,  began  half 
to  wish  for  the  Druid's  sacrificial  knife  to  end  our 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  7 

sufferings.  But  the  Druid's  knife  is  gone  from  his 
hands ;  so  we  sought  the  shelter  of  the  Eisteddfod 
building. 

The  sight  inside  was  not  lively.  The  president 
and  his  supporters  mustered  strong  on  the  platform. 
On  the  floor  the  one  or  two  front  benches  were  pretty 
well  filled,  but  their  occupants  were  for  the  most  part 
Saxons,  who  came  there  from  curiosity,  not  from  en- 
thusiasm ;  and  all  the  middle  and  back  benches, 
where  should  have  been  the  true  enthusiasts, — the 
Welsh  people, — were  nearly  empty.  The  president, 
I  am  sure,  showed  a  national  spirit  which  was  admir- 
able. He  addressed  us  Saxons  in  our  own  language, 
and  called  us  "  the  English  branch  of  the  descendants 
of  the  ancient  Britons."  We  received  the  compli- 
ment with  the  impassive  dulness  which  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  our  nature ;  and  the  lively  Celtic  nature, 
which  should  have  made  up  for  the  dulness  of  ours, 
was  absent.  A  lady  who  sat  by  me,  and  who  was 
the  wife,  I  found,  of  a  distinguished  bard  on  the 
platform,  told  me,  with  emotion  in  her  look  and 
voice,  how  dear  were  these  solemnities  to  the  heart 
of  her  people,  how  deep  was  the  interest  which  is 
aroused  by  them.  I  believe  her,  but  still  the  whole 
performance,  on  that  particular  morning,  was  incur- 
ably lifeless.  The  recitation  of  the  prize  composi- 
tions began  :  pieces  of  verse  and  prose  in  the  Welsh 
language,  an  essay  on  punctuality  being,  if  I  remem- 
ber right,  one  of  them  ;  a  poem  on  the  march  of 
Havelock,  another.  This  went  on  for  some  time. 
Then  Dr.  Vaughan, — the  well-known  Nonconformist 


8  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

minister,  a  Welshman,  and  a  good  patriot,  —  ad 
dressed  us  in  English.  His  speech  was  a  powerful 
one,  and  he  succeeded,  I  confess,  in  sending  a  faint 
thrill  through  our  front  benches ;  but  it  was  the  old 
familiar  thrill  which  we  have  all  of  us  felt  a  thousand 
times  in  Saxon  chapels  and  meeting-halls,  and  had 
nothing  bardic  about  it.  I  stepped  out,  and  in  the 
street  I  came  across  an  acquaintance  fresh  from  Lon- 
don and  the  parliamentary  session.  In  a  moment 
the  spell  of  the  Celtic  genius  was  forgotten,  the 
Philistinism  of  our  Saxon  nature  made  itself  felt; 
and  my  friend  and  I  walked  up  and  down  by  the 
roaring  waves,  talking  not  of  ovates  and  bards,  and 
triads  and  englyns,  but  of  the  sewage  question,  and 
the  glories  of  our  local  self-government,  and  the 
mysterious  perfections  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of 
Works. 

I  believe  it  is  admitted,  even  by  the  admirers  of 
Eisteddfods  in  general,  that  this  particular  Eistedd- 
fod was  not  a  success.  Llandudno,  it  is  said,  was  not 
the  right  place  for  it.  Held  in  Conway  Castle,  as  a 
few  years  ago  it  was,  and  its  spectators, — an  enthu- 
siastic multitude, — filling  the  grand  old  ruin,  I  can 
imagine  it  a  most  impressive  and  interesting  sight, 
even  to  a  stranger  labouring  under  the  terrible  dis- 
advantage of  being  ignorant  of  the  Welsh  language. 
But  even  seen  as  I  saw  it  at  Llandudno,  it  had  the 
power  to  set  one  thinking.  An  Eisteddfod  is,  no 
doubt,  a  kind  of  Olympic  meeting;  and  that  the 
common  people  of  Wales  should  care  for  such  a 
thing,  shows  something  Greek  in  them,  something 


CELTIC  LITERATUEE.  \) 

spiritual,  something  humane,  something  (I  am  afraid 
one  must  add)  which  in  the  English  common  people 
is  not  to  be  found.  This  line  of  reflection  has  been 
followed  by  the  accomplished  Bishop  of  St.  David's, 
and  by  the  Saturday  Review  ;  it  is  just,  it  is  fruitful, 
and  those  who  pursued  it  merit  our  best  thanks. 
But,  from  peculiar  circumstances,  the  Llandudno 
meeting  was,  as  I  have  said,  such  as  not  at  all  to 
suggest  ideas  of  Olympia,  and  of  a  multitude  touched 
liy  the  divine  flame,  and  hanging  on  the  lips  of 
Pindar.  It  rather  suggested  the  triumph  of  the 
prosaic,  practical  Saxon,  and  the  approaching  extinc- 
tion of  an  enthusiasm  which  he  derides  as  factitious, 
a  literature  which  he  disdains  as  trash,  a  language 
which  he  detests  as  a  nuisance. 

I  must  say  I  quite  share  the  opinion  of  my  brother 
Saxons  as  to  the  practical  inconvenience  of  perpe- 
tuating the  speaking  of  Welsh.  It  may  cause  a 
moment's  distress  to  one's  imagination  when  one 
hears  that  the  last  Cornwall  peasant  who  spoke  the 
old  tongue  of  Cornwall  is  dead ;  but,  no  doubt,  Corn- 
wall is  the  better  for  adopting  English,  for  becoming- 
more  thoroughly  one  with  the  rest  of  the  country. 
The  fusion  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands  into 
one  homogeneous,  English-speaking  whole,  the  break- 
ing down  of  barriers  between  us,  the  swallowing  up 
of  separate  provincial  nationalities,  is  a  consummation 
to  which  the  natural  course  of  things  irresistibly 
tends ;  it  is  a  necessity  of  what  is  called  modern 
civilisation,  and  modern  civilisation  is  a  real,  legiti- 
mate force  ;  the  change  must  come,  and  its  accomplish- 


10  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

ment  is  a  mere  affair  of  time.  The  sooner  the  Welsh 
language  disappears  as  an  instrument  of  the  practical, 
political,  social  life  of  Wales,  the  better;  the  better 
for  England,  the  better  for  Wales  itself.  Traders 
and  tourists  do  excellent  service  by  pushing  the  Eng- 
lish wedge  farther  and  farther  into  the  heart  of  the 
principality  ;  Ministers  of  Education,  by  hammering 
it  harder  and  harder  into  the  elementary  schools. 
Nor,  perhaps,  can  one  have  much  sympathy  with  the 
literary  cultivation  of  Welsh  as  an  instrument  of 
living  literature  ;  and  in  this  respect  Eisteddfods  en- 
courage, I  think,  a  fantastic  and  mischief-working 
delusion.  For  all  serious  purposes  in  modern  litera- 
ture (and  trifling  purposes  in  it  who  would  care  to 
encourage  ?)  the  language  of  a  Welshman  is  and  must 
be  English ;  if  an  Eisteddfod  author  has  anything  to 
say  about  punctuality  or  about  the  march  of  Have- 
lock,  he  had  much  better  say  it  in  English ;  or 
rather,  perhaps,  what  he  has  to  say  on  these  subjects 
may  as  well  be  said  in  Welsh,  but  the  moment  he 
has  anything  of  real  importance  to  say,  anything  the 
world  will  the  least  care  to  hear,  he  must  speak  Eng- 
lish. Dilettanteism  might  possibly  do  much  harm 
here,  might  mislead  and  waste  and  bring  to  nought 
a  genuine  talent.  For  all  modern  purposes,  I  repeat, 
let  us  all  as  soon  as  possible  be  one  people ;  let  the 
Welshman  speak  English,  and,  if  he  is  an  author,  let 
him  write  English. 

So  far,  I  go  along  with  the  stream  of  my  brother 
Saxons  ;  but  here,  I  imagine,  I  part  company  with 
them.     They  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Welsh 


CELTIC  LITEEATURE.  11 

language  and  literature  on  any  terms  ;  they  would 
gladly  make  a  clean  sweep  of  it  from  the  face  of 
the  earth.  I,  on  certain  terms,  wish  to  make  a  great 
deal  more  of  it  than  is  made  now  ;  and  I  regard  the 
Welsh  literature, — or  rather,  dropping  the  distinc- 
tion between  Welsh  and  Irish,  Gaels  and  Cymris, 
let  me  say  Celtic  literature, — as  an  object  of  very 
great  interest.  My  brother  Saxons  have,  as  is  well 
known,  a  terrible  way  with  them  of  wanting  to  im- 
prove everything  but  themselves  off  the  face  of  the 
earth  ;  I  have  no  such  passion  for  finding  nothing  but 
myself  everywhere  ;  I  like  variety  to  exist  and  to 
show  itself  to  me,  and  I  would  not  for  the  world  have 
the  lineaments  of  the  Celtic  genius  lost.  But  I  know 
my  brother  Saxons,  I  know  their  strength,  and  I 
know  that  the  Celtic  genius  will  make  nothing  of 
trying  to  set  up  barriers  against  them  in  the  world 
of  fact  and  brute  force,  of  trying  to  hold  its  own 
against  them  as  a  political  and  social  counter-power, 
as  the  soul  of  a  hostile  nationality.  To  me  there  is 
something  mournful  (and  at  this  moment,  when  one 
sees  what  is  going  on  in  Ireland,  how  well  may  one 
say  so  !)  in  hearing  a  Welshman  or  an  Irishman  make 
pretensions, — natural  pretensions,  I  admit,  but  how 
hopelessly  vain  ! — to  such  a  rival  self-establishment ; 
there  is  something  mournful  in  hearing  an  English- 
man scout  them.  Strength  !  alas  it  is  not  strength, 
strength  in  the  material  world,  which  is  wanting  to 
us  Saxons ;  we  have  plenty  of  strength  for  swallow- 
ing up  and  absorbing  as  much  as  we  choose  ;  there  is 
nothing   to   hinder   us   from    effacing  the  last   poor 


12  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

material  remains  of  that  Celtic  power  which  once  was 
everywhere,  but  has  long  since,  in  the  race  of  civilisa- 
tion, fallen  out  of  sight.  We  may  threaten  them 
with  extinction  if  we  will,  and  may  almost  say  in  so 
threatening  them,  like  Csesar  in  threatening  with 
death  the  tribune  Metellus  who  closed  the  treasury 
doors  against  him  :  "And  when  I  threaten  this,  young 
man,  to  threaten  it  is  more  trouble  to  me  than  to  do 
it."  It  is  not  in  the  outward  and  visible  world  of 
material  life  that  the  Celtic  genius  of  Wales  or 
Ireland  can  at  this  day  hope  to  count  for  much  ;  it  is 
in  the  inward  world  of  thought  and  science.  What 
it  has  been,  what  it  has  done,  let  it  ask  us  to  attend 
to  that,  as  a  matter  of  science  and  history  ;  not  to 
what  it  will  be  or  will  do,  as  a  matter  of  modern 
politics.  It  cannot  count  appreciably  now  as  a 
material  power;  but,  perhaps,  if  it  can  get  itself 
thoroughly  known  as  an  object  of  science,  it  may 
count  for  a  good  deal,— far  more  than  we  Saxons, 
most  of  us,  imagine, — as  a  spiritual  power. 

The  bent  of  our  time  is  towards  science,  towards 
knowing  things  as  they  are;  so  the  Celt's  claims 
towards  having  his  genius  and  its  works  fairly  treated, 
as  objects  of  scientific  investigation,  the  Saxon  can 
hardly  reject,  when  these  claims  are  urged  simply  on 
their  own  merits,  and  are  not  mixed  up  with  extrane- 
ous pretensions  which  jeopardise  them.  What  the 
French  call  the  sciencd  des  origines,  the  science  of 
origins, — a  science  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  real 
knowledge  of  the  actual  world,  and  which  is  every 
day  growing  in  interest  and  importance, — is  very  in- 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  13 

complete  without  a  thorough  critical  account  of  the 
Celts,  and  their  genius,  language,  and  literature.  This 
science  has  still  great  progress  to  make,  hut  its  pro- 
gress, made  even  within  the  recollection  of  those  of 
us  who  are  in  middle  life,  has  already  affected  our 
common  notions  ahout  the  Celtic  race ;  and  this 
change,  too,  shows  how  science,  the  knowing  things 
as  they  are,  may  even  have  salutary  practical  conse- 
quences. I  remember,  when  I  was  young,  I  was 
taught  to  think  of  Celt  as  separated  by  an  impass- 
able gulf  from   Teuton  ;l  my  father,   in   particular, 

1  Here  again  let  me  have  the  pleasure  of  quoting  Lord 
Strangford  : — "When  the  Celtic  tongues  were  first  taken  in 
hand  at  the  dawn  of  comparative  philological  inquiry,  the 
tendency  was,  for  all  practical  results,  to  separate  them  from 
the  Indo-European  aggregate,  rather  than  to  unite  them  with 
it.  The  great  gulf  once  fixed  between  them  was  narrowed  on 
the  surface,  but  it  was  greatly  and  indefinitely  deepened.  Then 
vocabulary  and  some  of  their  grammar  was  seen  at  once  to  be 
perfectly  Indo-European,  but  they  had  no  case-endings  to  their 
nouns, — none  at  all  in  "Welsh,  none  that  could  be  understood 
in  Gaelic  ;  their  phonesis  seemed  primeval  and  inexplicable,  and 
nothing  could  be  made  out  of  their  pronouns  which  could  not 
be  equally  made  out  of  many  wholly  on-Aryan  languages.  They 
were  therefore  co-ordinated,  not  with  each  single  Aryan  tongue 
but  with  the  general  complex  of  Aryan  tongues,  and  were  con- 
ceived to  be  anterior  to  them  and  apart  from  them,  as  it  wen 
the  strayed  vanguard  of  European  colonisation  or  conquest  from 
the  East.  The  reason  of  this  misconception  was,  that  their 
records  lay  wholly  uninvestigated  as  far  as  all  historical  study 
of  the  language  was  concerned,  and  that  nobody  troubled  him- 
self about  the  relative  age  and  the  development  of  forms,  so 
that  the  philologists  were  fain  to  take  them  as  they  were  put 
into  their  hands  by  uncritical  or  perverse  native  commentators 
and  writers,  whose  grammars  and  dictionaries  teemed  with 
blunders  and  downright  forgeries.     One  thing,  and  one  thing 


14  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

was  never  weary  of  contrasting  them  ;  he  insisted 
much  oftener  on  the  separation  between  us  and 
them  than  on  the  separation  between  us  and  any 
other  race  in  the  world ;  in  the  same  way  Lord 
Lyndhurst,  in  words  long  famous,  called  the  Irish, 
"  aliens  in  speech,  in  religion,  in  blood."  This  natu- 
rally created  a  profound  sense  of  estrangement;  it 
doubled  the  estrangement  which  political  and  reli- 
gious differences  already  made  between  us  and  the 
Irish  :  it  seemed  to  make  this  estrangement  immense, 
incurable,  fatal.  It  begot  a  strange  reluctance,  as  any 
one  may  see  by  reading  the  preface  to  the  great  text- 
book for  Welsh  poetry,  the  Myvyrian  Archceology, 
published  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  to  fur- 
ther, nay,  allow, — even  among  quiet,  peaceable  people 

alone,  led  to  the  truth  :  the  sheer  drudgery  of  thirteen  long 
years  spent  by  Zeuss  in  the  patient  investigation  of  the  most 
ancient  Celtic  records,  in  their  actual  condition,  line  by  line 
and  letter  by  letter.  Then  for  the  first  time  the  foundation  of 
Celtic  research  was  laid  ;  but  the  great  philologist  did  not  live 
to  see  the  superstructure  which  never  could  have  been  raised 
but  for  him.  Prichard  was  first  to  indicate  the  right  path, 
and  Bopp,  in  his  monograph  of  1839,  displayed  his  incompar- 
able and  masterly  sagacity  as  usual,  but  for  want  of  any  trust- 
worthy record  of  Celtic  words  and  forms  to  work  upon,  the 
truth  remained  concealed  or  obscured  until  the  publication  of 
the  Grammatica  Ccltica.  Dr.  Arnold,  a  man  of  the  past  genera- 
tion, who  made  more  use  of  the  then  uncertain  and  unfixed 
doctrines  of  comparative  philology  in  his  historical  writings 
than  is  done  by  the  present  generation  in  the  fullest  noonday 
light  of  the  Vcrgleichendc  Grammatik,  was  thus  justified  in  his 
view  by  the  philology  of  the  period,  to  which  he  merely  gave 
an  enlarged  historical  expression.  The  prime  fallacy  then  as 
now,  however,  was  that  of  antedating  the  distinction  between 
Gaelic  and  Cymric  Celts." 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  15 

like  the  Welsh,  the  publication  of  the  documents  of 
their  ancient  literature,  the  monuments  of  the  Cymric 
genius ;  such  was  the  sense  of  repulsion,  the  sense  of 
incompatibility,  of  radical  antagonism,  making  it 
seem  dangerous  to  us  to  let  such  opposites  to  our- 
selves have  speech  and  utterance.  Certainly  the 
Jew, — the  Jew  of  ancient  times,  at  least, — then 
seemed  a  thousand  degrees  nearer  than  the  Celt 
to  us.  Puritanism  had  so  assimilated  Bible  ideas 
and  phraseology ;  names  like  Ebenezer,  and  notions 
like  that  of  hewing  Agag  in  pieces,  came  so  natural 
to  us,  that  the  sense  of  affinity  between  the  Teutonic 
and  the  Hebrew  nature  was  quite  strong ;  a  steady, 
middle-class  Anglo-Saxon  much  more  imagined  him- 
self Ehud's  cousin  than  Ossian's.  But  meanwhile, 
the  pregnant  and  striking  ideas  of  the  ethnologists 
about  the  true  natural  grouping  of  the  human  race, 
the  doctrine  of  a  great  Indo-European  unity,  com- 
prising Hindoos,  Persians,  Greeks,  Latins,  Celts, 
Teutons,  Slavonians,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  a  Semitic  unity  and  of  a  Mongolian 
unity,  separated  by  profound  distinguishing  marks 
from  the  Indo-European  unity  and  from  one  another, 
was  slowly  acquiring  consistency  and  popularising 
itself.  So  strong  and  real  could  the  sense  of  sym- 
pathy or  antipathy,  grounded  upon  real  identity  01 
diversity  in  race,  grow  in  men  of  culture,  that  we 
read  of  a  genuine  Teuton, — Wilhelm  von  Humboldt, 
finding,  even  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  that  sphere 
where  the  might  of  Semitism  has  been  so  over- 
powering,   the    food    which    most   truly   suited    his 


16  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

spirit  in  the  productions  not  of  the  alien  Semitic 
genius,  but  of  the  genius  of  Greece  or  India,  the 
Teuton's  born  kinsfolk  of  the  common  Indo-Euro- 
pean family.  "Towards  Semitism  he  felt  himself," 
we  read,  "far  less  drawn;"  he  had  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  certain  antipathy  in  the  depths  of  his 
nature  to  this,  and  to  its  "absorbing,  tyrannous, 
terrorist  religion,"  as  to  the  opener,  more  flexible 
Indo-European  genius,  this  religion  appeared.  "  The 
mere  workings  of  the  old  man  in  him!"  Semitism 
will  readily  reply ;  and  though  one  can  hardly  admit 
this  short  and  easy  method  of  settling  the  matter,  it 
must  be  owned  that  Humboldt's  is  an  extreme  case 
of  Indo-Europeanism,  useful  as  letting  us  see  what 
may  be  the  power  of  race  and  primitive  constitution, 
but  not  likely,  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  to  have  many 
companion  cases  equalling  it.  Still,  even  in  this 
sphere,  the  tendency  is  in  Humboldt's  direction ; 
the  modern  spirit  tends  more  and  more  to  estab- 
lish a  sense  of  native  diversity  between  our  Euro- 
pean bent  and  the  Semitic  bent,  and  to  eliminate, 
even  in  our  religion,  certain  elements  as  purely  and 
excessively  Semitic,  and  therefore,  in  right,  not 
combinable  with  our  European  nature,  not  assimil- 
able by  it.  This  tendency  is  now  quite  visible  even 
among  ourselves,  and  even,  as  I  have  said,  within 
the  great  sphere  of  the  Semitic  genius,  the  sphere 
of  religion ;  and  for  its  justification  this  tendency 
appeals  to  science,  the  science  of  origins ;  it  appeals 
to  this  science  as  teaching  us  which  way  our  natural 
affinities   and   repulsions    lie.      It    appeals    to    this 


CELTIC  LITERATUEE.  17 

science,  and  in  part  it  conies  from  it;  it  is,  in  con- 
siderable part,  an  indirect  practical  result  from  it. 

In  the  sphere  of  politics,  too,  there  has,  in  the 
same  way,  appeared  an  indirect  practical  result  from 
this  science;  the  sense  of  antipathy  to  the  Irish  people, 
of  radical  estrangement  from  them,  has  visibly  abated 
amongst  all  the  better  part  of  us  ;  the  remorse  for 
past  ill-treatment  of  them,  the  wish  to  make  amends, 
to  do  them  justice,  to  fairly  unite,  if  possible,  in  one 
people  with  them,  has  visibly  increased  ;  hardly  a 
book  on  Ireland  is  now  published,  hardly  a  debate 
on  Ireland  now  passes  in  Parliament,  without  this 
appearing.  Fanciful  as  the  notion  may  at  first  seem, 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  march  of  science, — 
science  insisting  that  there  is  no  such  original  chasm 
between  the  Celt  and  the  Saxon  as  we  once  popularly 
imagined,  that  they  are  not  truly,  what  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst  called  them,  aliens  in  blood  from  us,  that  they 
are  our  brothers  in  the  great  Indo-European  family, 
has  had  a  share,  an  appreciable  share,  in  producing 
this  changed  state  of  feeling.  No  doubt,  the  release 
from  alarm  and  struggle,  the  sense  of  firm  possession, 
solid  security,  and  overwhelming  power ;  no  doubt 
these,  allowing  and  encouraging  humane  feelings  to 
spring  up  in  us,  have  done  much  ;  no  doubt  a  state 
of  fear  and  danger,  Ireland  in  hostile  conflict  with  us, 
our  union  violently  disturbed,  might,  while  it  drove 
back  all  humane  feelings,  make  also  the  old  sense  of, 
utter  estrangement  revive.  Nevertheless,  so  long  as 
such  a  malignant  revolution  of  events  does  not  actually 
come  about,  so  long  the  new  sense  of  kinship  and 
VOL.  II.  C 


18  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

kindliness  lives,  works,  and  gathers  strength ;  and 
the  longer  it  so  lives  and  works,  the  more  it  makes 
any  such  malignant  revolution  improbable.  And 
this  new,  reconciling  sense  has,  I  say,  its  roots  in 
science. 

However,  on  these  indirect  benefits  of  science  we 
must  not  lay  too  much  stress.  Only  this  must  be 
allowed  ;  it  is  clear  that  there  are  now  in  operation 
two  influences,  both  favourable  to  a  more  attentive 
and  impartial  study  of  Celtism  than  it  has  yet  ever 
received  from  us.  One  is  the  strengthening  in  us  of 
the  feeling  of  Indo-Europeanism ;  the  other,  the 
strengthening  in  us  of  the  scientific  sense  generally. 
The  first  breaks  down  barriers  between  us  and  the 
Celt,  relaxes  the  estrangement  between  us ;  the 
second  begets  the  desire  to  know  his  case  thoroughly, 
and  to  be  just  to  it.  This  is  a  very  different  matter 
from  the  political  and  social  Celtisation  of  which  cer- 
tain enthusiasts  dream  ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  despised 
by  any  one  to  whom  the  Celtic  genius  is  dear ;  and 
it  is  possible,  while  the  other  is  not. 

I. 

To  know  the  Celtic  case  thoroughly,  one  must 
know  the  Celtic  people ;  and  to  know  them  one  must 
know  that  by  which  a  people  best  express  themselves, 
. — their  literature.  Few  of  us  have  any  notion  what 
a  mass  of  Celtic  literature  is  really  yet  extant  and 
accessible.  One  constantly  finds  even  very  accom- 
plished people,  who  fancy  that  the  remains  of  Welsh 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  19 

and  Irish  literature  are  as  inconsiderable  by  their 
volume,  as,  in  their  opinion,  they  are  by  their  intrin- 
sic merit ;  that  these  remains  consist  of  a  few  prose 
stories,  in  great  part  borrowed  from  the  literature  of 
nations  more  civilised  than  the  Welsh  or  Irish  nation, 
and  of  some  unintelligible  poetry.  As  to  Welsh 
literature,  they  have  heard,  perhaps,  of  the  Black 
Book  of  Caermarthen,  or  of  the  Bed  Book  of  Hergest,  and 
they  imagine  that  one  or  two  famous  manuscript 
books  like  these  contain  the  whole  matter.  They 
have  no  notion  that,  in  real  truth,  to  quote  the  words 
of  one  who  is  no  friend  to  the  high  pretensions  of 
Welsh  literature,  but  their  most  formidable  impugner, 
Mr.  Nash  : — "  The  Myvyrian  manuscripts  alone,  now 
deposited  in  the  British  Museum,  amount  to  47 
volumes  of  poetry,  of  various  sizes,  containing  about 
4700  pieces  of  poetry,  in  16,000  pages,  besides  about 
2000  englynion  or  epigrammatic  stanzas.  There  are 
also,  in  the  same  collection,  53  volumes  of  prose,  in 
about  15,300  pages,  containing  a  great  many  curious 
documents  on  various  subjects.  Besides  these,  which 
were  purchased  of  the  Avidow  of  the  celebrated  Owen 
Jones,  the  editor  of  the  Myvyrian  Archaeology,  there 
are  a  vast  number  of  collections  of  Welsh  manu- 
scripts in  London,  and  in  the  libraries  of  the  gentry 
of  the  principality."  The  Myvyrian  Archaeology, 
here  spoken  of  by  Mr.  Nash,  I  have  already  men- 
tioned ;  he  calls  its  editor,  Owen  Jones,  celebrated ; 
he  is  not  so  celebrated  but  that  he  claims  a  word,  in 
passing,  from  a  professor  of  poetry.  He  was  a  Den- 
bighshire statesman,  as  we  say  in  the  north,  born  be- 


20  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

fore  the  middle  of  last  century,  in  that  vale  of  Myvyr, 
which  has  given  its  name  to  his  archaeology.  From  his 
childhood  he  had  that  passion  for  the  old  treasures  of 
his  country's  literature,  which  to  this  day,  as  I  have 
said,  in  the  common  people  of  Wales  is  so  remark- 
able ;  these  treasures  were  unprinted,  scattered,  dim- 
cult  of  access,  jealously  guarded.  "  More  than  once," 
says  Edward  Lhuyd,  who  in  his  Archmlogia  Britan- 
nica,  brought  out  by  him  in  1707,  would  gladly  have 
given  them  to  the  world,  "  more  than  once  I  had  a 
promise  from  the  owner,  and  the  promise  was  after- 
wards retracted  at  the  instigation  of  certain  persons, 
pseudo-politicians,  as  I  think,  rather  than  men  of 
letters."  So  Owen  Jones  went  up,  a  young  man  of 
nineteen,  to  London,  and  got  employment  in  a  fur- 
rier's shop  in  Thames  Street ;  for  forty  years,  with  a 
single  object  in  view,  he  worked  at  his  business  ;  and 
at  the  end  of  that  time  his  object  was  won.  He  had 
risen  in  his  employment  till  the  business  had  become 
his  own,  and  he  was  now  a  man  of  considerable 
means  ;  but  those  means  had  been  sought  by  him  for 
one  purpose  only,  the  purpose  of  his  life,  the  dream 
of  his  youth, — the  giving  permanence  and  publicity 
to  the  treasures  of  his  national  literature.  Gradually 
he  got  manuscript  after  manuscript  transcribed,  and 
at  last,  in  1801,  he  jointly  with  two  friends  brought 
out  in  three  large  volumes,  printed  in  double  columns, 
his  Myvyrian  Archceology  of  Wales.  The  book  is  full 
of  imperfections ;  it  presented  itself  to  a  public  which 
could  not  judge  of  its  importance,  and  it  brought  upon 
its  author  in  his  lifetime  more  attack  than  honour. 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  21 

He  died  not  long  afterwards,  and  now  he  lies  buried 
in  All-hallows  Church,  in  London,  with  his  tomb 
turned  towards  the  east,  away  from  the  green  vale  of 
Clwyd  and  the  mountains  of  his  native  Wales  ;  but 
his  book  is  the  great  repertory  of  the  literature  of  his 
nation,  the  comparative  study  of  languages  and 
literatures  gains  every  day  more  followers,  and  no 
one  of  these  followers,  at  home  or  abroad,  touches 
Welsh  literature  without  paying  homage  to  the  Den- 
bighshire peasant's  name  ;  if  the  bard's  glory  and  his 
own  are  still  matter  of  moment  to  him, — si  quid  men- 
tern  mortalia  tangunt, — he  may  be  satisfied. 

Even  the  printed  stock  of  early  Welsh  literature 
is,  therefore,  considerable,  and  the  manuscript  stock 
of  it  is  very  great  indeed.  Of  Irish  literature,  the 
stock,  printed  and  manuscript,  is  truly  vast ;  the  work 
of  cataloguing  and  describing  this  has  been  admirably 
performed  by  another  remarkable  man,  who  died  only 
the  other  day,  Mr.  Eugene  O'Curry.  Obscure  Scaliger 
of  a  despised  literature,  he  deserves  some  weightier 
voice  to  praise  him  than  the  voice  of  an  unlearned 
bellettristic  trifler  like  me ;  he  belongs  to  the  race  of 
the  giants  in  literary  research  and  industry, — a  race 
now  almost  extinct.  Without  a  literary  education, 
and  impeded  too,  it  appears,  by  much  trouble  of  mind 
and  infirmity  of  body,  he  has  accomplished  such  a 
thorough  work  of  classification  and  description  for  the 
chaotic  mass  of  Irish  literature,  that  the  student  has 
now  half  his  labour  saved,  and  needs  only  to  use  his 
materials  as  Eugene  O'Curry  hands  them  to  him.  It 
was  as  a  professor  in  the  Catholic  University  in  Dublin 


22  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

that  O'Curry  gave  the  lectures  in  which  he  has  done 
the  student  this  service ;  it  is  touching  to  find  that 
these  lectures,  a  splendid  tribute  of  devotion  to  the 
Celtic  cause,  had  no  hearer  more  attentive,  more 
sympathising,  than  a  man,  himself,  too,  the  champion 
of  a  cause  more  interesting  than  prosperous, — one  of 
those  causes  which  please  noble  spirits,  but  do  not 
please  destiny,  which  have  Cato's  adherence,  but  not 
Heaven's, — Dr.  Newman.  Eugene  O'Curry,  in  these 
lectures  of  his,  taking  as  his  standard  the  quarto  page 
of  Dr.  O'Donovan's  edition  of  the  Annals  of  the  Four 
Masters  (and  this  printed  monument  of  one  branch  of 
Irish  literature  occupies  by  itself,  let  me  say  in  passing, 
seven  large  quarto  volumes,  containing  4215  pages  of 
closely  printed  matter),  Eugene  O'Curry  says,  that 
the  great  vellum  manuscript  books  belonging  to 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  to  the  Eoyal  Irish  Aca- 
demy,— books  with  fascinating  titles,  the  Book  of  the 
Dun  Cow,  the  Booh  of  Leinster,  the  Book  of  Ballymote, 
the  Speckled  Book,  the  Book  of  Lecain,  the  Yellow  Book  of 
Lecain, — have,  between  them,  matter  enough  to  fill 
11,400  of  these  pages;  the  other  vellum  manuscripts 
in  the  library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  have  matter 
enough  to  fill  8200  pages  more ;  and  the  paper  manu- 
scripts of  Trinity  College,  and  the  Eoyal  Irish  Academy 
together,  would  fill,  he  says,  30,000  such  pages  more. 
The  ancient  laws  of  Ireland,  the  so-called  Brehon  laws, 
which  a  commission  is  now  publishing,  were  not  as 
yet  completely  transcribed  when  O'Curry  wrote  ;  but 
what  had  even  then  been  transcribed  was  sufficient, 
he  says,  to  fill  nearly  8000  of  Dr.  O'Donovan's  pages. 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  23 

Here  are,  at  any  rate,  materials  enough  with  a  ven- 
geance. These  materials  fall,  of  course,  into  several 
divisions.  The  most  literary  of  these  divisions,  the 
Tales,  consisting  of  Historic  Tales  and  Imaginative  Tales, 
distributes  the  contents  of  its  Historic  Tales  as  follows : 
— Battles,  voyages,  sieges,  tragedies,  cow-spoils,  court- 
ships, adventures,  land -expeditions,  sea-expeditions, 
banquets,  elopements,  loves,  lake-irruptions,  colonisa- 
tions, visions.  Of  what  a  treasure-house  of  resources 
for  the  history  of  Celtic  life  and  the  Celtic  genius  does 
that  bare  list,  even  by  itself,  call  up  the  image  !  The 
Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  give  "  the  years  of  founda- 
tions and  destructions  of  churches  and  castles,  the 
obituaries  of  remarkable  persons,  the  inaugurations  of 
kings,  the  battles  of  chiefs,  the  contests  of  clans,  the 
ages  of  bards,  abbots,  bishops,  etc."1  Through  other 
divisions  of  this  mass  of  materials,  —  the  books  of 
pedigrees  and  genealogies,  the  martyrologies  and  festo- 
logies,  such  as  the  Felire  of  Angus  the  Culdee,  the  topo- 
graphical tracts,  such  as  the  Dinnsenchas, — we  touch 
"  the  most  ancient  traditions  of  the  Irish,  traditions 
which  were  committed  to  writing  at  a  period  when 
the  ancient  customs  of  the  people  were  unbroken." 
We  touch  "the  early  history  of  Ireland,  civil  and 
ecclesiastical."  We  get  "  the  origin  and  history  of  the 
countless  monuments  of  Ireland,  of  the  ruined  church 
and  tower,  the  sculptured  cross,  the  holy  well,  and 
the  commemorative  name  of  almost  every  townland 
and  parish  in  the  whole  island."     We  get,  in  short, 

1  Dr.  O'Conor  in  liis  Catalogue  of  the  Siowe  MSS.  (quoted  by 
O'Curry). 


24  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

"the  most  detailed  information  upon  almost  every 
part  of  ancient  Gaelic  life,  a  vast  quantity  of  valuable 
details  of  life  and  manners."1 

And  then,  besides,  to  our  knowledge  of  the  Celtic 
genius,  Mr.  Norris  has  brought  us  from  Cornwall,  M. 
de  la  Villemarque"  from  Brittany,  contributions,  in- 
significant indeed  in  quantity,  if  one  compares  them 
with  the  mass  of  the  Irish  materials  extant,  but  far  from 
insignificant  in  value. 

We  want  to  know  what  all  this  mass  of  docu- 
ments really  tells  us  about  the  Celt.  But  the  mode 
of  dealing  with  these  documents,  and  with  the  whole 
question  of  Celtic  antiquity,  has  hitherto  been  most 
unsatisfactory.  Those  who  have  dealt  with  them, 
have  gone  to  work,  in  general,  either  as  warm  Celt- 
lovers  or  as  warm  Celt-haters,  and  not  as  disin- 
terested students  of  an  important  matter  of  science. 
One  party  seems  to  set  out  with  the  determina- 
tion to  find  everything  in  Celtism  and  its  remains ; 
the  other,  with  the  determination  to  find  nothing  in 
them.  A  simple  seeker  for  truth  has  a  hard  time 
between  the  two.  An  illustration  or  so  will  make 
clear  what  I  mean.  First  let  us  take  the  Celt-lovers, 
who,  though  they  engage  one's  sympathies  more  than 
the  Celt-haters,  yet,  inasmuch  as  assertion  is  more 
dangerous  than  denial,  show  their  weaknesses  in  a 
more  signal  way.  A  very  learned  man,  the  Rev. 
Edward  Davies,  published  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century  two  important  books  on  Celtic  antiquity. 
The  second  of  these  books,  The  Mythology  and  Bites  oj 

1  O'Curry. 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  25 

the  British  Druids,  contains,  with  much  other  interest- 
ing matter,  the  charming  story  of  Taliesin.  Bryant's 
book  on  mythology  was  then  in  vogue,  and  Bryant, 
in  the  fantastical  manner  so  common  in  those  days, 
found  in  Greek  mythology  what  he  called  an  arkite 
idolatry,  pointing  to  Noah's  deluge  and  the  ark. 
Davies  wishing  to  give  dignity  to  his  Celtic  mytho- 
logy, determines  to  find  the  arkite  idolatry  there 
too,  and  the  style  in  which  he  proceeds  to  do  this 
affords  a  good  specimen  of  the  extravagance  which 
has  caused  Celtic  antiquity  to  be  looked  upon  with  so 
much  suspicion.     The  story  of  Taliesin  begins  thus  : — 

"  In  former  times  there  was  a  man  of  noble  descent 
in  Penllyn.  His  name  was  Tegid  Voel,  and  his 
paternal  estate  was  in  the  midd.le  of  the  Lake  of 
Tegid,  and  his  wife  was  called  Ceridwen." 

Nothing  could  well  be  simpler ;  but  what  Davies 
finds  in  this  simple  opening  of  Taliesin's  story,  is 
prodigious  : — 

"  Let  us  take  a  brief  view  of  the  proprietor  of  this 
estate.  Tegid  Voel — bald  serenity — presents  itself 
at  once  to  our  fancy.  The  painter  would  find  no 
embarrassment  in  sketching  the  portrait  of  this  sedate 
venerable  personage,  whose  crown  is  partly  stripped 
of  its  hoary  honours.  But  of  all  the  gods  of  antiquity, 
none  could  with  propriety  sit  for  this  picture  except- 
ing Saturn,  the  acknowledged  representative  of  Noah, 
and  the  husband  of  Rhea,  which  was  but  another 
name  for  Ceres,  the  genius  of  the  ark." 

And  Ceres,  the  genius  of  the  ark,  is  of  course 
found  in  Ceridwen.   "the  British  Ceres,   the  arkite 


2G  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

goddess  who  initiates  us  into  the  deepest  mysteries  of 
the  arkite  superstition." 

Now  the  story  of  Taliesin,  as  it  proceeds,  exhibits 
Ceridwen  as  a  sorceress ;  and  a  sorceress,  like  a 
goddess,  belongs  to  the  world  of  the  supernatural ; 
but,  beyond  this,  the  story  itself  does  not  suggest  one 
particle  of  relationship  between  Ceridwen  and  Ceres. 
All  the  rest  conies  out  of  Davies's  fancy,  and  is 
established  by  reasoning  of  the  force  of  that  about 
"bald  serenity." 

It  is  not  difficult  for  the  other  side,  the  Celt-haters, 
to  get  a  triumph  over  such  adversaries  as  these. 
Perhaps  I  ought  to  ask  pardon  of  Mr.  Nash,  whose 
Taliesin  it  is  impossible  to  read  without  profit  and 
instruction,  for  classing  him  among  the  Celt-haters : 
his  determined  scepticism  about  "Welsh  antiquity 
seems  to  me,  however,  to  betray  a  preconceived 
hostility,  a  bias  taken  beforehand,  as  unmistakable  as 
Mr.  Davies's  prepossessions.  But  Mr.  Nash  is  often 
very  happy  in  demolishing,  for  really  the  Celt-lovers 
seem  often  to  try  to  lay  themselves  open,  and  to 
invite  demolition.  Full  of  his  notions  about  an  arkite 
idolatry  and  a  Helio-da3monic  worship,  Edward  Davies 
gives  this  translation  of  an  old  Welsh  poem,  entitled 
The  Panegyric  of  Lludd  the  Great : — 

"A  song  of  dark  import  was  composed  by  the 
distinguished  Ogdoad,  who  assembled  on  the  day  of 
the  moon,  and  went  in  open  procession.  On  the  day 
of  Mars  they  allotted  wrath  to  their  adversaries ;  on 
the  day  of  Mercury  they  enjoyed  their  full  pomp ;  on 
the  day  of  Jove  they  were  delivered  from  the  detested 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  27 

usurpers ;  on  the  day  of  Venus,  the  day  of  the  great 
influx,  they  swam  in  the  blood  of  men;1  on  the  day 
of  the  Sun  there  truly  assemble  five  ships  and  five 
hundred  of  those  who  make  supplication  :  0  Brithi, 
0  Brithoi !  0  son  of  the  compacted  wood,  the  shock 
overtakes  me ;  we  all  attend  on  Adonai,  on  the  area 
of  Pwmpai." 

That  looks  Helio-damionic  enough,  undoubtedly ; 
especially  when  Davies  prints  0  Brithi,  0  Brithoi  /  in 
Hebrew  characters,  as  being  "vestiges  of  sacred 
hymns  in  the  Phoenician  language."  But  then  comes 
Mr.  Nash,  and  says  that  the  poem  is  a  Middle-Age 
composition,  with  nothing  Helio-dsemonic  about  it; 
that  it  is  meant  to  ridicule  the  monks;  and  that  0 
Brithi,  0  Brithoi/  is  a  mere  piece  of  unintelligible 
jargon  in  mockery  of  the  chants  used  by  the  monks 
at  prayers ;  and  he  gives  this  counter-translation  of 
the  poem : — 

"  They  make  harsh  songs ;  they  note  eight  num- 
bers. On  Monday  they  will  be  prying  about.  On 
Tuesday  they  separate,  angry  with  their  adversaries. 
On  Wednesday  they  drink,  enjoying  themselves 
ostentatiously.  On  Thursday  they  are  in  the  choir ; 
their  poverty  is  disagreeable.  Friday  is  a  day  of 
abundance,  the  men  are  swimming  in  pleasures.  On 
Sunday,  certainly,  five  legions  and  five  hundreds  of 
them,  they  pray,  they  make  exclamations  :  0  Brithi, 
Brithoi !  Like  wood-cuckoos  in  noise  they  will  be, 
every  one  of  the  idiots  banging  on  the  ground." 

1  Here,  where  Saturday  should  come,  something  is  wanting 
in  the  manuscript. 


28  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

As  one  reads  Mr.  Nash's  explanation  and  trans- 
lation after  Edward  Davies's,  one  feels  that  a  flood  of 
the  hroad  daylight  of  common-sense  has  been  suddenly 
shed  over  the  Panegyric  on  Lhidd  the  Great,  and  one 
is  very  grateful  to  Mr.  Nash. 

Or,  again,  when  another  Celt-lover,  Mr.  Herbert, 
has  bewildered  us  with  his  fancies,  as  uncritical  as 
Edward  Davies's;  with  his  neo-Druidism,  his  Mith- 
riac  heresy,  his  Crist  -celi,  or  man -god  of  the  mys- 
teries ;  and,  above  all,  his  ape  of  the  sanctuary, 
"signifying  the  mercurial  principle,  that  strange  and 
unexplained  disgrace  of  paganism,"  Mr.  Nash  comes 
to  our  assistance,  and  is  most  refreshingly  rational. 
To  confine  ourselves  to  the  ape  of  the  sanctuary  only. 
Mr.  Herbert  constructs  his  monster, — to  whom,  he 
says,  "  great  sanctity,  together  with  foul  crime,  decep- 
tion, and  treachery,"  is  ascribed, — out  of  four  lines  of 
old  Welsh  poetry,  of  which  he  adopts  the  following 
translation : — 

"Without  the  ape,  without  the  stall  of  the  cow, 
without  the  mundane  rampart,  the  world  will  become 
desolate,  not  requiring  the  cuckoos  to  convene  the 
appointed  dance  over  the  green." 

One  is  not  very  clear  what  all  this  means,  but  it 
has,  at  any  rate,  a  solemn  air  about  it,  which  prepares 
one  for  the  development  of  its  first-named  personage, 
the  ape,  into  the  mystical  ape  of  the  sanctuary.  The 
cow,  too, — says  another  famous  Celt-lover,  Dr.  Owen, 
the  learned  author  of  the  Welsh  Dictionary, — the  cow 
(henfon)  is  the  cow  of  transmigration ;  and  this  also 
sounds  natural  enough.     But  Mr.  Nash,  who  has  a 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  29 

keen  eye  for  the  piecing  which  frequently  happens 
in  these  old  fragments,  has  observed  that  just  here, 
where  the  ape  of  the  sanctuary  and  the  cow  of  trans- 
migration make  their  appearance,  there  seems  to 
come  a  cluster  of  adages,  popular  sayings ;  and  he  at 
once  remembers  an  adage  preserved  with  the  word 
henfon  in  it,  where,  as  he  justly  says,  "  the  cow  of 
transmigration  cannot  very  well  have  place."  This 
adage,  rendered  literally  in  English,  is :  "  Whoso 
owns  the  old  cow,  let  him  go  at  her  tail ; "  and  the 
meaning  of  it,  as  a  popular  saying,  is  clear  and 
simple  enough.  With  this  clue,  Mr.  Nash  examines 
the  whole  passage,  suggests  that  heb  eppa,  "  without 
the  ape,"  with  which  Mr.  Herbert  begins,  in  truth 
belongs  to  something  going  before  and  is  to  be  trans- 
lated somewhat  differently ;  and,  in  short,  that  what 
we  really  have  here  is  simply  these  three  adages  one 
after  another :  "  The  first  share  is  the  full  one. 
Politeness  is  natural,  says  the  ape.  Without  the  cow- 
stall  there  would  be  no  dung-heap"  And  one  can 
hardly  doubt  that  Mr.  Nash  is  quite  right. 

Even  friends  of  the  Celt,  who  are  perfectly  incap- 
able of  extravagances  of  this  sort,  fall  too  often  into 
a  loose  mode  of  criticism  concerning  him  and  the 
documents  of  his  history,  which  is  unsatisfactory  in 
itself,  and  also  gives  an  advantage  to  his  many 
enemies.  One  of  the  best  and  most  delightful  friends 
he  has  ever  had, — M.  de  la  Villemarque, — has  seen 
clearly  enough  that  often  the  alleged  antiquity  of  his 
documents  cannot  be  proved,  that  it  can  be  even  dis- 
proved, and  that  he  must  rely  on  other  supports  thai) 


30  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

this  to  establish  what  he  wants ;  yet  one  finds  him 
saying  :  "I  open  the  collection  of  Welsh  bards  from 
the  sixth  to  the  tenth  century.  Taliesin,  one  of  the 
oldest  of  them,"  .  .  .  and  so  on.  But  his  adversaries 
deny  that  we  have  really  any  such  thing  as  a  "  collec- 
tion of  Welsh  bards  from  the  sixth  to  the  tenth 
century,"  or  that  a  "Taliesin,  one  of  the  oldest  of 
them,"  exists  to  be  quoted  in  defence  of  any  thesis. 
Sharon  Turner,  again,  whose  Vindication  of  the  Ancient 
British  Poems  was  prompted,  it  seems  to  me,  by  a  critical 
instinct  at  bottom  sound,  is  weak  and  uncritical  in 
details  like  this :  "  The  strange  poem  of  Taliesin, 
called  the  Spoils  of  Annum,  implies  the  existence  (in 
the  sixth  century,  he  means)  of  mythological  tales 
about  Arthur ;  and  the  frequent  allusion  of  the  old 
Welsh  bards  to  the  persons  and  incidents  which  we 
find  in  the  Mabinogion,  are  further  proofs  that  there 
must  have  been  such  stories  in  circulation  amongst 
the  Welsh."  But  the  critic  has  to  show,  against  his 
adversaries,  that  the  Spoils  of  Annwn  is  a  real  poem 
of  the  sixth  century,  with  a  real  sixth-century  poet 
called  Taliesin  for  its  author,  before  he  can  use  it  to 
prove  what  Sharon  Turner  there  wishes  to  prove; 
and,  in  like  manner,  the  high  antiquity  of  persons 
and  incidents  that  are  found  in  the  manuscripts  of  the 
Mabinogion, — manuscripts  written,  like  the  famous 
Red  Book  of  Hergest,  in  the  library  of  Jesus  College  at 
Oxford,  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, — 
is  not  proved  by  allusions  of  the  old  Welsh  bards, 
until  (which  is  just  the  question  at  issue)  the  pieces 
containing  these  allusions  are  proved  themselves  to 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  31 

possess  a  very  high  antiquity.  In  the  present  state 
of  the  question  as  to  the  early  Welsh  literature,  this 
sort  of  reasoning  is  inconclusive  and  bewildering,  and 
merely  carries  us  round  in  a  circle.  Again,  it  is 
worse  than  inconclusive  reasoning,  it  shows  so  un- 
critical a  spirit  that  it  begets  grave  mistrust,  when 
Mr.  Williams  ab  Ithel,  employed  by  the  Master  of  the 
Rolls  to  edit  the  Brut  y  Tywysogion,  the  "Chronicle  of 
the  Princes,"  says  in  his  introduction,  in  many  re- 
spects so  useful  and  interesting :  "  We  may  add,  on 
the  authority  of  a  scrupulously  faithful  antiquary, 
and  one  that  was  deeply  versed  in  the  traditions  of 
his  order — the  late  Iolo  Morganwg — that  King  Arthur 
in  his  Institutes  of  the  Round  Table  introduced  the 
age  of  the  world  for  events  which  occurred  before 
Christ,  and  the  year  of  Christ's  nativity  for  all  subse- 
quent events."  Now,  putting  out  of  the  question 
Iolo  Morganwg's  character  as  an  antiquary,  it  is 
obvious  that  no  one,  not  Grimm  himself,  can  stand  in 
that  way  as  "authority"  for  King  Arthur's  having 
thus  regulated  chronology  by  his  Institutes  of  the 
Round  Table,  or  even  for  there  ever  having  been  any 
such  institutes  at  all.  And  finally,  greatly  as  I  re- 
spect and  admire  Mr.  Eugene  O'Curry,  unquestionable 
as  is  the  sagacity,  the  moderation,  which  he  in  general 
unites  with  his  immense  learning,  I  must  say  that  he, 
too,  like  his  brother  Celt-lovers,  sometimes  lays  him- 
self dangerously  open.  For  instance,  the  Royal  Irish 
Academy  possesses  in  its  Museum  a  relic  of  the 
greatest  value,  the  Domhnach  Airgid,  a  Latin  manu- 
script of  the  four  gospels.     The  outer  box  containing 


32  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

this  manuscript  is  of  the  fourteenth  century,  but  the 
manuscript  itself,  says  O'Curry  (and  no  man  is  better 
able  to  judge),  is  certainly  of  the  sixth.  This  is  all 
very  well.  "But,"  O'Curry  then  goes  on,  "I  believe 
no  reasonable  doubt  can  exist  that  the  Domhnach 
Airgid  was  actually  sanctified  by  the  hand  of  our 
great  Apostle."  One  has  a  thrill  of  excitement  at 
receiving  this  assurance  from  such  a  man  as  Eugene 
O'Curry;  one  believes  that  he  is  really  going  to  make 
it  clear  that  St.  Patrick  did  actually  sanctify  the 
Domhnach  Airgid  with  his  own  hands ;  and  one  reads 
on : — 

"As  St.  Patrick,  says  an  ancient  life  of  St.  Mac 
Carthainn  preserved  by  Colgan  in  his  Acta  Sanctorum 
Hibernian,  was  on  his  way  from  the  north,  and  coming 
to  the  place  now  called  Clogher,  he  was  carried  over 
a  stream  by  his  strong  man,  Bishop  Mac  Carthainn, 
who,  while  bearing  the  Saint,  groaned  aloud,  exclaim- 
ing :   'Ugh!  Ugh!' 

"  '  Upon  my  good  word,'  said  the  Saint,  '  it  was 
not  usual  with  you  to  make  that  noise.' 

"  '  I  am  now  old  and  infirm,'  said  Bishop  Mac 
Carthainn,  '  and  all  my  early  companions  in  mission- 
Avork  you  have  settled  down  in  their  respective 
churches,  while  I  am  still  on  my  travels.' 

"  '  Found  a  church  then,'  said  the  Saint,  '  that 
shall  not  be  too  near  us  (that  is  to  his  own  Church 
of  Armagh)  for  familiarity,  nor  too  far  from  us  for 
intercourse.' 

"  And  the  Saint  then  left  Bishop  Mac  Carthainn 
there,  at  Clogher,  and  bestowed  the  Domhnach  Airgid 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  33 

upon  him,  which  had  heen  given  to  Patrick  from 
heaven,  when  he  was  on  the  sea,  coming  to  Erin." 

The  legend  is  full  of  poetry,  full  of  humour ;  and 
one  can  quite  appreciate,  after  reading  it,  the  tact 
which  gave  St.  Patrick  such  a  prodigious  success  in 
organising  the  primitive  church  in  Ireland  ;  the  new 
bishop,  "not  too  near  us  for  familiarity,  nor  too  far 
from  us  for  intercourse,"  is  a  masterpiece.  But  how 
can  Eugene  O'Curry  have  imagined  that  it  takes  no 
more  than  a  legend  like  that,  to  prove  that  the  parti- 
cular manuscript  now  in  the  Museum  of  the  Eoyal 
Irish  Academy  was  once  in  St.  Patrick's  pocket  1 

I  insist  upon  extravagances  like  these,  not  in  order 
to  throw  ridicule  upon  the  Celt-lovers, — on  the  con- 
trary, I  feel  a  great  deal  of  sympathy  with  them, — 
but  rather,  to  make  it  clear  what  an  immense  advan 
tage  the  Celt-haters,  the  negative  side,  have  in  the 
controversy  about  Celtic  antiquity ;  how  much  a  clear- 
headed sceptic,  like  Mr.  Nash,  may  utterly  demolish, 
and,  in  demolishing,  give  himself  the  appearance  of 
having  won  an  entire  victory.  But  an  entire  victory 
he  has,  as  I  will  next  proceed  to  show,  by  no  means 
won. 

II. 

I  said  that  a  sceptic  like  Mr.  Nash,  by  demolishing 
the  rubbish  of  the  Celtic  antiquaries,  might  often 
give  himself  the  appearance  of  having  won  a  complete 
victory,  but  that  a  complete  victory  he  had,  in  truth, 
by  no  means  won.  He  has  cleared  much  rubbish 
away,   but   this  is  no  such  very  difficult  feat,  and 

VOL.    II.  D 


34  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

requires  mainly  common-sense ;  to  be  sure,  Welsh 
archaeologists  are  apt  to  lose  their  common-sense,  but 
at  moments  when  they  are  in  possession  of  it  they 
can  do  the  indispensable,  negative  part  of  criticism, 
not,  indeed,  so  briskly  or  cleverly  as  Mr.  Nash,  but 
still  well  enough.  Edward  Davies,  for  instance,  has 
quite  clearly  seen  that  the  alleged  remains  of  old 
Welsh  literature  are  not  to  be  taken  for  genuine 
just  as  they  stand  :  "  Some  petty  and  mendicant 
minstrel,  who  only  chaunted  it  as  an  old  song,  has 
tacked  on"  (he  says  of  a  poem  he  is  discussing) 
"  these  lines,  in  a  style  and  measure  totally  different 
from  the  preceding  verses  :  '  May  the  Trinity  grant 
us  mercy  in  the  day  of  judgment :  a  liberal  donation, 
good  gentlemen  ! '  There,  fifty  years  before  Mr. 
Nash,  is  a  clearance  very  like  one  of  Mr.  Nash's. 
But  the  difficult  feat  in  this  matter  is  the  feat  of 
construction ;  to  determine  when  one  has  cleared 
away  all  that  is  to  be  cleared  away,  what  is  the 
significance  of  that  which  is  left ;  and  here,  I  confess, 
I  think  Mr.  Nash  and  his  fellow-sceptics,  who  say 
that  next  to  nothing  is  left,  and  that  the  significance 
of  whatever  is  left  is  next  to  nothing,  dissatisfy  the 
genuine  critic  even  more  than  Edward  Davies  and  his 
brother  enthusiasts,  who  have  a  sense  that  something 
primitive,  august,  and  interesting  is  there,  though 
they  fail  to  extract  it,  dissatisfy  him.  There  is  a  very 
edifying  story  told  by  O'Curry  of  the  effect  produced 
on  Moore,  the  poet,  who  had  undertaken  to  write  the 
history  of  Ireland  (a  task  for  which  he  was  quite 
unfit),  by  the  contemplation  of  an  old  Irish  manu- 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  35 

script.  Moore  had,  without  knowing  anything  about 
them,  spoken  slightingly  of  the  value  to  the  historian 
of  Ireland  of  the  materials  afforded  by  such  manu- 
scripts ;  but,  says  O'Curry  : — 

"  In  the  year  1839,  during  one  of  his  last  visits  to 
the  land  of  his  birth,  he,  in  company  with  his  old 
and  attached  friend  Dr.  Petrie,  favoured  me  with  an 
unexpected  visit  at  the  Eoyal  Irish  Academy.  I  was 
at  that  period  employed  on  the  Ordnance  Survey  of 
Ireland,  and  at  the  time  of  his  visit  happened  to  have 
before  me  on  my  desk  the  Boohs  of  Ballymote  and 
Lecain,  The  Speckled  Book,  The  Annals  of  the  Four 
Masters,  and  many  other  ancient  books,  for  historical 
research  and  reference.  I  had  never  before  seen 
Moore,  and  after  a  brief  introduction  and  explanation 
of  the  nature  of  my  occupation  by  Dr.  Petrie,  and 
seeing  the  formidable  array  of  so  many  dark  and 
time-worn  volumes  by  which  I  was  surrounded,  he 
looked  a  little  disconcerted,  but  after  a  while  plucked 
up  courage  to  open  the  Book  of  Ballymote  and  ask 
what  it  was.  Dr.  Petrie  and  myself  then  entered  into 
a  short  explanation  of  the  history  and  character  of 
the  books  then  present  as  well  as  of  ancient  Gaedhelic 
documents  in  general.  Moore  listened  with  great 
attention,  alternately  scanning  the  books  and  myself, 
and  then  asked  me,  in  a  serious  tone,  if  I  understood 
them,  and  how  I  had  learned  to  do  so.  Having 
satisfied  him  upon  these  points,  he  turned  to  Dr. 
Petrie  and  said  :  '  Petrie,  these  huge  tomes  could 
not  have  been  written  by  fools  or  for  any  foolish  pur- 
pose.    I  never  knew  anything  about  them  before,  and 


36  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

I  had  no  right  to  have  undertaken  the  History  of 
Ireland?  " 

And  from  that  day  Moore,  it  is  said,  lost  all  heart 
for  going  on  with  his  History  of  Ireland,  and  it  was 
only  the  importunity  of  the  publishers  which  induced 
him  to  bring  out  the  remaining  volume. 

Could  not  have  been  written  by  fools,  or  for  any  foolish 
purpose.  That  is,  I  am  convinced,  a  true  presenti- 
ment to  have  in  one's  mind  when  one  looks  at  Irish 
documents  like  the  Book  of  Ballymote,  or  Welsh  docu- 
ments like  the  Red  Booh  of  Hergest.  In  some  respects, 
at  any  rate,  these  documents  are  what  they  claim  to 
be,  they  hold  what  they  pretend  to  hold,  they  touch 
that  primitive  world  of  which  they  profess  to  be  the 
voice.  The  true  critic  is  he  who  can  detect  this 
precious  and  genuine  part  in  them,  and  employ  it  for 
the  elucidation  of  the  Celt's  genius  and  history,  and 
for  any  other  fruitful  purposes  to  which  it  can  be 
applied.  Merely  to  point  out  the  mixture  of  what  is 
late  and  spurious  in  them,  is  to  touch  but  the  fringes 
of  the  matter.  In  reliance  upon  the  discovery  of  this 
mixture  of  what  is  late  and  spurious  in  them,  to 
pooh-pooh  them  altogether,  to  treat  them  as  a  heap  of 
rubbish,  a  mass  of  Middle- Age  forgeries,  is  to  fall  into 
the  greatest  possible  error.  Granted  that  all  the 
manuscripts  of  Welsh  poetry  (to  take  that  branch  of 
Celtic  literature  which  has  had,  in  Mr.  Nash,  the 
ablest  disparager),  granted  that  all  such  manuscripts 
that  we  possess  are,  with  the  most  insignificant  excep- 
tion, not  older  than  the  twelfth  century  ;  granted 
that  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  were  a  time 


CELTIC  L1TERATUKE.  37 

of  great  poetical  activity  in  Wales,  a  time  when  the 
mediaeval  literature  flourished  there,  as  it  flourished 
in  England,  France,  and  other  countries ;  granted 
that  a  great  deal  of  what  Welsh  enthusiasts  have 
attributed  to  their  great  traditional  poets  of  the  sixth 
century  belongs  to  this  later  epoch, — what  then  1 
Does  that  get  rid  of  the  great  traditional  poets,  the 
Cynveirdd  or  old  bards,  Aneurin,  Taliesin,  Llywarch 
Hen,  and  their  compeers, — does  that  get  rid  of  the 
great  poetical  tradition  of  the  sixth  century  alto- 
gether ;  does  it  merge  the  whole  literary  antiquity  of 
Wales  in  her  mediaeval  literary  antiquity,  or,  at  least, 
reduce  all  other  than  this  to  insignificance  ?  Mr. 
Nash  says  it  does ;  all  his  efforts  are  directed  to  show 
how  much  of  the  so-called  sixth-century  pieces  may 
be  resolved  into  mediaeval,  twelfth-century  work  ;  his 
grand  thesis  is  that  there  is  nothing  primitive  and 
pre-Christian  in  the  extant  Welsh  literature,  no  traces 
of  the  Druidism  and  Paganism  every  one  associates 
with  Celtic  antiquity  ;  all  this,  he  says,  was  extin- 
guished by  Paulinus  in  A.D.  59,  and  never  resuscitated. 
"  At  the  time  the  Mabinogion  and  the  Taliesin  ballads 
were  composed,  no  tradition  or  popular  recollection 
of  the  Druids  or  the  Druidical  mythology  existed  in 
Wales.  The  Welsh  bards  knew  of  no  older  mystery, 
nor  of  any  mystic  creed,  unknown  to  the  rest  of  the 
Christian  world."  And  Mr.  Nash  complains  that 
"  the  old  opinion  that  the  Welsh  poems  contain 
notices  of  Druid  or  Pagan  superstitions  of  a  remote 
origin  "  should  still  find  promulgators  ;  what  we  find 
in  them  is  only,   he  says,  what  was  circulating  in 


38  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Wales  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  "  one  great  mistake 
in  these  investigations  has  been  the  supposing  that 
the  Welsh  of  the  twelfth,  or  even  of  the  sixth  century, 
were  wiser  as  well  as  more  Pagan  than  their  neigh- 
bours." 

Why,  what  a  wonderful  thing  is  this  !  We  have, 
in  the  first  place,  the  most  weighty  and  explicit  tes- 
timony,— Strabo's,  Caesar's,  Lucan's, — that  this  race 
once  possessed  a  special,  profound,  spiritual  discipline, 
that  they  were,  to  use  Mr.  Nash's  words,  "  wiser  than 
their  neighbours."  Lucan's  words  are  singular!  y 
clear  and  strong,  and  serve  well  to  stand  as  a  land- 
mark in  this  controversy,  in  which  one  is  sometimes 
embarrassed  by  hearing  authorities  quoted  on  this 
side  or  that,  when  one  does  not  feel  sure  precisely 
what  they  say,  how  much  or  how  little;  Lucan, 
addressing  those  hitherto  under  the  pressure  of  Eome, 
but  now  left  by  the  Roman  civil  war  to  their  own 
devices,  says : — 

"  Ye  too,  ye  bards,  who  by  your  praises  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  the  fallen  brave,  without  hindrance 
poured  forth  your  strains.  And  ye,  ye  Druids,  now 
that  the  sword  was  removed,  began  once  more  your 
barbaric  rites  and  weird  solemnities.  To  you  only  is 
given  knowledge  or  ignorance  (whichever  it  be)  of  the 
gods  and  the  powers  of  heaven ;  your  dwelling  is  in 
the  lone  heart  of  the  forest.  From  you  we  learn, 
that  the  bourne  of  man's  ghost  is  not  the  senseless 
grave,  not  the  pale  realm  of  the  monarch  below  ;  in 
another  world  his  spirit  survives  still ; — death,  if  your 
lore  be  true,  is  but  the  passage  to  enduring  life." 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  39 

There  is  the  testimony  of  an  educated  Roman, 
fifty  years  after  Christ,  to  the  Celtic  race  being  then 
"wiser  than  their  neighbours ; "  testimony  all  the 
more  remarkable  because  civilised  nations,  though 
very  prone  to  ascribe  to  barbarous  people  an  ideal 
purity  and  simplicity  of  life  and  manners  are  by  no 
means  naturally  inclined  to  ascribe  to  them  high 
attainment  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  things.  And 
now,  along  with  this  testimony  of  Lucan's,  one  has 
to  carry  in  mind  Csesar's  remark,  that  the  Druids, 
partly  from  a  religious  scruple,  partly  from  a  desire 
to  discipline  the  memory  of  their  pupils,  committed 
nothing  to  writins;.  Well,  then  come  the  crashing 
defeat  of  the  Celtic  race  in  Britain  and  the  Eoman 
conquest ;  but  the  Celtic  race  subsisted  here  still,  and 
any  one  can  see  that,  while  the  race  subsisted,  the 
traditions  of  a  discipline  such  as  that  of  which  Lucan 
has  drawn  the  picture  Avere  not  likely  to  be  so  very 
speedily  "extinguished."  The  withdrawal  of  the 
Romans,  the  recovered  independence  of  the  native 
race  here,  the  Saxon  invasion,  the  struggle  with  the 
Saxons,  were  just  the  ground  for  one  of  those  bursts 
of  energetic  national  life  and  self-consciousness  which 
find  a  voice  in  a  burst  of  poets  and  poetry.  Accord- 
ingly, to  this  time,  to  the  sixth  century,  the  universal 
Welsh  tradition  attaches  the  great  group  of  British 
poets,  Taliesin  and  his  fellows.  In  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury there  began  for  Wales,  along  with  another  burst 
of  national  life,  another  burst  of  poetry ;  and  this 
burst  literary  in  the  stricter  sense  of  the  word, — a 
burst  which  left,  for  the  first  time,  written  records. 


40  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

It  wrote  the  records  of  its  predecessors,  as  Avell  as  of 
itself,  and  therefore  Mr.  Nash  wants  to  make  it  the 
real  author  of  the  whole  poetry,  one  may  say,  of  the 
sixth  century  as  well  as  its  own.  No  doubt  one 
cannot  produce  the  texts  of  the  poetry  of  the  sixth 
century ;  no  doubt  we  have  this  only  as  the  twelfth 
and  succeeding  centuries  wrote  it  down ;  no  doubt 
they  mixed  and  changed  it  a  great  deal  in  writing  it 
down.  But,  since  a  continuous  stream  of  testimony 
shows  the  enduring  existence  and  influence  among 
the  kindred  Celts  of  Wales  and  Brittany,  from  the 
sixth  century  to  the  twelfth,  of  an  old  national  litera- 
ture, it  seems  certain  that  much  of  this  must  be 
traceable  in  the  documents  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  the  interesting  thing  is  to  trace  it.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  there  is  such  a  continuous  stream  of 
testimony;  there  is  Gildas  in  the  sixth  century, 
Nennius  in  the  eighth,  the  laws  of  Howel  in  the 
tenth ;  in  the  eleventh,  twenty  or  thirty  years  before 
the  new  literary  epoch  began,  we  hear  of  Rhys  ap 
Tudor  having  "  brought  with  him  from  Brittany  the 
system  of  the  Round  Table,  which  at  home  had 
become  quite  forgotten,  and  he  restored  it  as  it  is, 
with  regard  to  minstrels  and  bards,  as  it  had  been  at 
Caerleon-upon-Usk,  under  the  Emperor  Arthur,  in 
the  time  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  race  of  the  Cymry 
over  the  island  of  Britain  and  its  adjacent  islands." 
Mr.  Nash's  own  comment  on  this  is :  "  We  here  see 
the  introduction  of  the  Arthurian  romance  from 
Brittany,  preceding  by  nearly  one  generation  the 
revival  of  music  and  poetry  in  North  Wales  ; "  and 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  41 

yet  he  does  not  seem  to  perceive  what  a  testimony 
is  here  to  the  reality,  fulness,  and  subsistence  of  that 
primitive  literature  about  which  he  is  so  sceptical. 
Then  in  the  twelfth  century  testimony  to  this  primi- 
tive literature  absolutely  abounds ;  one  can  quote 
none  better  than  that  of  Giraldus  de  Barri,  or  Giraldus 
Cambrensis,  as  he  is  usually  called.  Giraldus  is  an 
excellent  authority,  who  knew  well  what  he  was 
writing  about,  and  he  speaks  of  the  "Welsh  bards  and 
rhapsodists  of  his  time  as  having  in  their  possession 
"  ancient  and  authentic  books "  in  the  Welsh  lan- 
guage. The  apparatus  of  technical  terms  of  poetry, 
again,  and  the  elaborate  poetical  organisation  which 
we  find  both  in  Wales  and  Ireland,  existing  from 
the  very  commencement  of  the  mediaeval  literary 
period  in  each,  and  to  which  no  other  mediaeval 
literature,  so  far  as  I  know,  shows  at  its  first  begin- 
nings anything  similar,  indicates  surely,  in  these 
Celtic  peoples,  the  clear  and  persistent  tradition  of 
an  older  poetical  period  of  great  development,  and 
almost  irresistibly  connects  itself  in  one's  mind 
with  the  elaborate  Druidic  discipline  which  Caesar 
mentions. 

But  perhaps  the  best  way  to  get  a  full  sense  of 
the  storied  antiquity,  forming  as  it  were  the  back- 
ground to  those  mediaeval  documents  which  in  Mr. 
Nash's  eyes  pretty  much  begin  and  end  with  them- 
selves, is  to  take,  almost  at  random,  a  passage  from 
such  a  tale  as  Kilhwch  and  Olwen,  in  the  MaHnogUm, 
— that  charming  collection,  for  which  we  owe  such 
a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Lady  Charlotte  Guest  (to  call 


42  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

her  still  by  the  name  she  bore  when  she  made  her 
happy  entry  into  the  world  of  letters),  and  which  she 
so  unkindly  suffers  to  remain  out  of  print.  Almost 
every  page  of  this  tale  points  to  traditions  and  per- 
sonages of  the  most  remote  antiquity,  and  is  instinct 
with  the  very  breath  of  the  primitive  world.  Search 
is  made  for  Mabon,  the  son  of  Modron,  who  was 
taken  when  three  nights  old  from  between  his  mother 
and  the  wall.  The  seekers  go  first  to  the  Ousel  of 
Cilgwri ;  the  Ousel  had  lived  long  enough  to  peck  a 
smith's  anvil  down  to  the  size  of  a  nut,  but  he  had 
never  heard  of  Mabon.  "  But  there  is  a  race  of  ani- 
mals who  were  formed  before  me,  and  I  will  be  your 
guide  to  them."  So  the  Ousel  guides  them  to  the 
Stag  of  Kedynvre.  The  Stag  has  seen  an  oak  sapling, 
in  the  wood  where  he  lived,  grow  up  to  be  an  oak 
with  a  hundred  branches,  and  then  slowly  decay 
down  to  a  withered  stump,  yet  he  had  never  heard  of 
Mabon.  "  But  I  will  be  your  guide  to  the  place 
where  there  is  an  animal  which  was  formed  before  I 
was  ; "  and  he  guides  them  to  the  Owl  of  Cwm  Caw- 
lwyd.  "  When  first  I  came  hither,"  says  the  Owl, 
"  the  wide  valley  you  see  was  a  wooded  glen.  And 
a  race  of  men  came  and  rooted  it  up.  And  there 
grew  a  second  wood ;  and  this  wood  is  the  third. 
My  wings,  are  they  not  withered  stumps?"  Yet 
the  Owl,  in  spite  of  his  great  age,  had  never  heard 
of  Mabon  ;  but  he  offered  to  be  guide  "  to  where  is 
the  oldest  animal  in  the  world,  and  the  one  that  has 
travelled  most,  the  Eagle  of  Gwern  Abwy."  The 
Eagle  was  so  old,  that  a  rock,  from  the  top  of  which 


CELTIC  LITER  ATUKE.  43 

he  pecked  at  the  stars  every  evening,  was  now  not  so 
much  as  a  span  high.  He  knew  nothing  of  Mabon  ; 
but  there  was  a  monster  Salmon,  into  whom  he  once 
struck  his  claws  in  Llyn  Llyw,  who  might,  perhaps, 
tell  them  something  of  him.  And  at  last  the  Salmon 
of  Llyn  Llyw  told  them  of  Mabon.  "With  every 
tide  I  go  along  the  river  upwards,  until  I  come  near 
to  the  walls  of  Gloucester,  and  there  have  I  found 
such  wrong  as  I  never  found  elsewhere."  And  the 
Salmon  took  Arthur's  messengers  on  his  shoulders  up 
to  the  wall  of  the  prison  in  Gloucester,  and  they 
delivered  Mabon. 

Nothing  could  better  give  that  sense  of  primitive 
and  pre -mediaeval  antiquity  which  to  the  observer 
with  any  tact  for  these  things  is,  I  think,  clearly 
perceptible  in  these  remains,  at  whatever  time  they 
may  have  been  written ;  or  better  serve  to  check  too 
absolute  an  acceptance  of  Mr.  Nash's  doctrine, — in 
some  respects  very  salutary,  —  "that  the  common 
assumption  of  such  remains  of  the  date  of  the  sixth 
century,  has  been  made  upon  very  unsatisfactory 
grounds."  It  is  true,  it  has ;  it  is  true,  too,  that,  as 
he  goes  on  to  say,  "writers  who  claim  for  produc- 
tions actually  existing  only  in  manuscripts  of  the 
twelfth,  an  origin  in  the  sixth  century,  are  called 
upon  to  demonstrate  the  links  of  evidence,  either 
internal  or  external,  which  bridge  over  this  great 
intervening  period  of  at  least  five  hundred  years." 
Then  Mr.  Nash  continues :  "  This  external  evidence 
is  altogether  wanting."  Not  altogether,  as  we  have 
seen ;  that  assertion  is  a  little  too  strong.     But  I  am 


44  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

content  to  let  it  pass,  because  it  is  true,  that  without 
internal  evidence  in  this  matter  the  external  evidence 
would  be  of  no  moment.  But  when  Mr.  Nash  con- 
tinues further :  "And  the  internal  evidence  even  of 
the  so-called  historic  poems  themselves,  is,  in  some 
instances  at  least,  opposed  to  their  claims  to  an  origin 
in  the  sixth  century,"  and  leaves  the  matter  there, 
and  finishes  his  chapter,  I  say  that  is  an  unsatisfactory 
turn  to  give  to  the  matter,  and  a  lame  and  impotent 
conclusion  to  his  chapter ;  because  the  one  interesting, 
fruitful  question  here  is,  not  in  what  instances  the 
internal  evidence  opposes  the  claims  of  these  poems 
to  a  sixth -century  origin,  but  in  what  instances  it 
supports  them,  and  what  these  sixth-century  remains, 
thus  established,  signify. 

So  again  with  the  question  as  to  the  mythological 
import  of  these  poems.  Mr.  Nash  seems  to  me  to 
have  dealt  with  this,  too,  rather  in  the  spirit  of  a 
sturdy  enemy  of  the  Celts  and  their  pretensions, — 
often  enough  chimerical, — than  in  the  spirit  of  a  dis- 
interested man  of  science.  "  We  find  in  the  oldest 
compositions  in  the  Welsh  language  no  traces,"  he 
says,  "of  the  Druids,  or  of  a  pagan  mythology."  He 
will  not  hear  of  there  being,  for  instance,  in  these 
compositions,  traces  of  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigra- 
tion of  souls,  attributed  to  the  Druids  in  such  clear 
words  by  Caesar.  He  is  very  severe  upon  a  German 
scholar,  long  and  favourably  known  in  this  country, 
who  has  already  furnished  several  contributions  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  Celtic  race,  and  of  whose  labours 
the  main  fruit  has,  I  believe,  not  yet  been  given  us, — 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  45 

Mr.  Meyer.  He  is  very  severe  upon  Mr.  Meyer,  for 
finding  in  one  of  the  poems  ascribed  to  Taliesin,  "  a 
sacrificial  hymn  addressed  to  the  god  Pryd,  in  his 
character  of  god  of  the  Sun."  It  is  not  for  me  to 
pronounce  for  or  against  this  notion  of  Mr.  Meyer's. 
I  have  not  the  knowledge  which  is  needed  in  order 
to  make  one's  suffrage  in  these  matters  of  any  value ; 
speaking  merely  as  one  of  the  unlearned  public,  I  will 
confess  that  allegory  seems  to  me  to  play,  in  Mr. 
Mej'er's  theories,  a  somewhat  excessive  part ;  Arthur 
and  his  Twelve  (?)  Knights  of  the  Round  Table  signi- 
fying solely  the  year  with  its  twelve  months  ;  Percival 
and  the  Miller  signifying  solely  steel  and  the  grind- 
stone ;  Stonehenge  and  the  Gododin  put  to  purely  calen- 
darial  purposes  ;  the  Nibelungen,  the  Mahabharata,  and 
the  Iliad,  finally  following  the  fate  of  the  Gododin; 
all  this  appears  to  me,  I  will  confess,  a  little  prema- 
turely grasped,  a  little  unsubstantial.  But  that  any 
one  who  knows  the  set  of  modern  mythological  science 
towards  astronomical  and  solar  myths,  a  set  which 
has  already  justified  itself  in  many  respects  so  victori- 
ously, and  which  is  so  irresistible  that  one  can  hardly 
now  look  up  at  the  sun  without  having  the  sensations 
of  a  moth  ; — that  any  one  who  knows  this  should  find 
in  the  Welsh  remains  no  traces  of  mythology  is  quite 
astounding.  Why,  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  old 
Cymric  world  are  all  in  the  sky  as  well  as  in  Welsh 
story ;  Arthur  is  the  Great  Bear,  his  harp  is  the  con- 
stellation Lyra ;  Cassiopeia's  chair  is  Llys  Don,  Don's 
Court ;  the  daughter  of  Don  was  Arianrod,  and  the 
Northern  Crown  is  Caer  Arianrod  ;   Gwydion  was 


46  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Don's  son,  and  the  Milky  Way  is  Caer  Gwydion. 
With  Gwydion  is  Math,  the  son  of  Mathonwy,  tho 
"man  of  illusion  and  phantasy;"  and  the  moment 
one  goes  below  the  surface, — almost  before  one  goes 
below   the   surface,  —  all   is   illusion   and   phantasy, 
double-meaning,  and  far-reaching  mythological  im- 
port, in  the  world  which  all  these  personages  inhabit. 
What  are  the  three  hundred  ravens  of  Owen,  and  the 
nine  sorceresses  of  Peredur,  and  the  dogs  of  Annwn 
the  Welsh  Hades,  and  the  birds  of  Ehiannon,  whose 
song  was  so  sweet  that  warriors  remained  spell-bound 
for  eighty  years  together  listening  to  them  ?     What 
is  the  Avanc,  the  water-monster,  of  whom  every  lake- 
side in  Wales,  and  her  proverbial  speech,  and  her 
music,  to  this  day  preserve  the  tradition  ?     What  is 
Gwyn  the  son  of  Nudd,  king  of  fairie,  the  ruler  of 
the  Tylwyth  Teg,  or  family  of  beauty,  who  till  the 
day  of  doom  fights  on  every  first  day  of  May,— the 
great  feast  of  the  sun  among  the  Celtic  peoples, — 
with  Gwythyr,  for  the  fair  Cordelia,  the  daughter  of 
Lear?     What  is  the  wonderful   mare  of  Teirnyon, 
which  on  the  night  of  every  first  of  May  foaled,  and 
no  one  ever  knew  what  became  of  the  colt  ?     Who  is 
the  mystic  Arawn,  the  king  of  Annwn,  who  changed 
semblance  for  a  year  with  Pwyll,  prince  of  Dyved, 
and  reigned  in  his  place?     These  are  no  mediaeval 
personages ;  they  belong  to  an  older,  pagan,  mytho- 
logical world.     The  very  first  thing  that  strikes  one, 
in  reading  the  Mabinogion,  is  how  evidently  the  mediae- 
val story-teller  is  pillaging  an  antiquity  of  which  he 
does  not  fully  possess  the  secret ;  he  is  like  a  peasant 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  47 

building  his  hut  on  the  site  of  Halicarnassus  or 
Ephesus;  he  builds,  hut  what  he  builds  is  full  of 
materials  of  which  he  knows  not  the  history,  or 
knows  by  a  glimmering  tradition  merely; — stones 
"not  of  this  building,"  but  of  an  older  architecture, 
greater,  cunninger,  more  majestical.  In  the  mediaeval 
stories  of  no  Latin  or  Teutonic  people  does  this  strike 
one  as  in  those  of  the  Welsh.  Kilhwch,  in  the  story, 
already  quoted,  of  Kilhwch  and  Ohven,  asks  help  at  the 
hand  of  Arthur's  warriors ;  a  list  of  these  warriors  is 
given,  which  fills  I  know  not  how  many  pages  of 
Lady  Charlotte  Guest's  book;  this  list  is  a  perfect 
treasure-house  of  mysterious  ruins  : — 

"  Teithi  Hen,  the  son  of  Gwynham — (his  domains 
were  swallowed  up  by  the  sea,  and  he  himself  hardly 
escaped,  and  he  came  to  Arthur,  and  his  knife  had 
this  peculiarity,  that  from  the  time  that  he  came 
there  no  haft  would  ever  remain  upon  it,  and  owing 
to  this  a  sickness  came  over  him,  and  he  pined  away 
during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  and  of  this  he  died). 

"Drem,  the  son  of  Dreinidyd — (when  the  gnat 
arose  in  the  morning  with  the  sun,  Drem  could  see  it 
from  Gelli  Wic  in  Cornwall,  as  far  off  as  Pen  Blathaon 
in  North  Britain). 

"  Kynyr  Keinvarvawc — (when  he  was  told  he  had 
a  son  born,  he  said  to  his  wife :  Damsel,  if  thy  son 
be  mine,  his  heart  will  be  always  cold,  and  there  will 
be  no  warmth  in  his  hands)." 

How  evident,  again,  is  the  slightness  of  the  narra- 
tor's hold  upon  the  Twrch-Trwyth  and  his  strange 
story !     How  manifest  the  mixture  of  known   and 


48  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

unknown,  shadowy  and  clear,  of  different  layers  and 
orders  of  tradition  jumbled  together,  in  the  story  of 
Bran  the  Blessed,  a  story  whose  personages  touch  a 
comparatively  late  and  historic  time.  Bran  invades 
Ireland,  to  avenge  one  of  "  the  three  unhappy  blows 
of  this  island,"  the  daily  striking  of  Bran  wen  by 
her  husband  Matholwch,  King  of  Ireland.  Bran  is 
mortally  wounded  by  a  poisoned  dart,  and  only  seven 
men  of  Britain,  "  the  Island  of  the  Mighty,"  escape, 
among  them  Taliesin  : — ■ 

"And  Bran  commanded  them  that  they  should 
cut  off  his  head.  And  take  you  my  head,  said  he, 
and  bear  it  even  unto  the  White  Mount  in  London, 
and  bury  it  there  with  the  face  towards  France. 
And  a  long  time  will  you  be  upon  the  road.  In 
Harlech  you  will  be  feasting  seven  years,  the  birds  of 
Rhiannon  singing  unto  you  the  while.  And  all  that 
time  the  head  will  be  to  you  as  pleasant  company  as 
it  ever  was  when  on  my  body.  And  at  Gwales  in 
Penvro  you  will  be  fourscore  years,  and  you  may  re- 
main there,  and  the  head  with  you  uncorrupted,  until 
you  open  the  door  that  looks  towards  Aber  Henvelen 
and  towards  Cornwall.  And  after  you  have  opened 
that  door,  there  you  may  no  longer  tarry ;  set  forth 
then  to  London  to  bury  the  head,  and  go  straight 
forward. 

"  So  they  cut  off  his  head,  and  those  seven  went 
forward  therewith.  And  Branwen  Avas  the  eighth 
with  them,  and  they  came  to  land  at  Aber  Alaw  in 
Anglesey,  and  they  sate  down  to  rest.  And  Branwen 
looked  towards  Ireland  and  towards  the  Island  of  the 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  49 

Mighty,  to  see  if  she  could  descry  them.  '  Alas,'  said 
she,  '  woe  is  me  that  I  was  ever  born  ;  two  islands 
have  been  destroyed  because  of  me.'  Then  she 
uttered  a  loud  groan,  and  there  broke  her  heart. 
And  they  made  her  a  four-sided  grave,  and  buried 
her  upon  the  banks  of  the  Alaw. 

"  Then  they  went  to  Harlech,  and  sate  down  to 
feast  and  to  drink  there ;  and  there  came  three  birds 
and  began  singing,  and  all  the  songs  they  had  ever 
heard  were  harsh  compared  thereto ;  and  at  this  feast 
they  continued  seven  years.  Then  they  went  to 
Gwales  in  Penvro,  and  there  they  found  a  fair  and 
regal  spot  overlooking  the  ocean,  and  a  spacious  hall 
was  therein.  And  they  went  into  the  hall,  and  two 
of  its  doors  were  open,  but  the  third  door  was  closed, 
that  which  looked  towards  Cornwall.  '  See  yonder,' 
said  Manawyddan,  '  is  the  door  that  we  may  not 
open.'  And  that  night  they  regaled  themselves,  and 
were  joyful.  And  there  they  remained  fourscore 
years,  nor  did  they  think  they  had  ever  spent  a  time 
more  joyous  and  mirthful.  And  they  were  not  more 
weary  than  when  first  they  came,  neither  did  they, 
any  of  them,  know  the  time  they  had  been  there. 
And  it  was  as  pleasant  to  them  having  the  head  with 
them  as  if  Bran  had  been  with  them  himself. 

"  But  one  day  said  Heilyn,  the  son  of  Gwyn  : 
'  Evil  betide  me  if  I  do  not  open  the  door  to  know 
if  that  is  true  which  is  said  concerning  it.'  So  he 
opened  the  door  and  looked  towards  Cornwall  and 
Aber  Henvelen.  And  when  they  had  looked,  they 
were  as  conscious  of  all  the  evils  they  had  ever  sus- 

VOL.  II.  E 


50  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

tamed,  and  of  all  the  friends  and  companions  they 
had  lost,  and  of  all  the  misery  that  had  befallen 
them,  as  if  all  had  happened  in  that  very  spot ;  and 
especially  of  the  fate  of  their  lord.  And  because  of 
their  perturbation  they  could  not  rest,  but  journeyed 
forth  with  the  head  towards  London.  And  they 
buried  the  head  in  the  White  Mount." 

Arthur  afterwards,  in  his  pride  and  self-confidence, 
disinterred  the  head,  and  this  was  one  of  "  the  three 
unhappy  disclosures  of  the  island  of  Britain." 

There  is  evidently  mixed  here,  with  the  newer 
legend,  a  detritus,  as  the  geologists  would  say,  of 
something  far  older ;  and  the  secret  of  Wales  and  its 
genius  is  not  truly  reached  until  this  detritus,  instead 
of  being  called  recent  because  it  is  found  in  contact 
with  what  is  recent,  is  disengaged,  and  is  made  to 
tell  its  own  story. 

But  when  we  show  him  things  of  this  kind  in  the 
Welsh  remains,  Mr.  Nash  has  an  answer  for  us. 
"  Oh,"  he  says,  "  all  this  is  merely  a  machinery  of 
necromancers  and  magic,  such  as  has  probably  been 
possessed  by  all  people  in  all  ages,  more  or  less 
abundantly.  How  similar  are  the  creations  of  the 
human  mind  in  times  and  places  the  most  remote ! 
We  see  in  this  similarity  only  an  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  a  common  stock  of  ideas,  variously 
developed  according  to  the  formative  pressure  of 
external  circumstances.  The  materials  of  these  tales 
are  not  peculiar  to  the  Welsh."  And  then  Mr.  Nash 
points  out,  with  much  learning  and  ingenuity,  how 
certain  incidents  of  these  tales  have  their  counterparts 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  51 

in  Irish,  in  Scandinavian,  in  Oriental  romance.  He 
says,  fairly  enough,  that  the  assertions  of  Taliesin,  in 
the  famous  Hanes  Taliesin,  or  History  of  Taliesin,  that 
he  was  present  with  Noah  in  the  Ark,  at  the  Tower 
of  Battel,  and  with  Alexander  of  Macedon,  "  we  may 
ascribe  to  the  poetic  fancy  of  the  Christian  priest  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  who  brought  this  romance 
into  its  present  form.  We  may  compare  these  state- 
ments of  the  universal  presence  of  the  wonder-working 
magician  with  those  of  the  gleeman  who  recites  the 
Anglo-Saxon  metrical  tale  called  the  Traveller's  Song." 
No  doubt  lands  the  most  distant  can  be  shown  to 
have  a  common  property  in  many  marvellous  stories. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  discoveries  of 
modern  science ;  but  modern  science  is  equally  in- 
terested in  knowing  how  the  genius  of  each  people 
has  differentiated,  so  to  speak,  this  common  property 
of  theirs ;  in  tracking  out,  in  each  case,  that  special 
"  variety  of  development "  which,  to  use  Mr.  Nash's 
own  words,  "  the  formative  pressure  of  external  cir- 
cumstances "  has  occasioned ;  and  not  the  formative 
pressure  from  without  only,  but  also  the  formative 
pressure  from  within.  It  is  this  which  he  who  deals 
with  the  Welsh  remains  in  a  philosophic  spirit  wants 
to  know.  Where  is  the  force,  for  scientific  purposes, 
of  telling  us  that  certain  incidents  by  which  Welsh 
poetry  has  been  supposed  to  indicate  a  surviving 
tradition  of  the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  are  found 
in  Irish  poetry  also,  when  Irish  poetry  has,  like 
Welsh,  its  roots  in  that  Celtism  which  is  said  to 
have  held  this  doctrine  of  transmigration  so  strongly  1 


52  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Where  is  even  the  great  force,  for  scientific  purposes, 
of  proving,  if  it  were  possible  to  prove,  that  the 
extant  remains  of  Welsh  poetry  contain  not  one  plain 
declaration  of  Druiclical,  Pagan,  pre-Christian  doc- 
trine, if  one  has  in  the  extant  remains  of  Breton 
poetry  such  texts  as  this  from  the  prophecy  of 
Gwenchlan  :  "  Three  times  must  we  all  die,  before 
we  come  to  our  final  repose  1 "  or  as  the  cry  of  the 
eagles,  in  the  same  poem,  of  fierce  thirst  for  Christian 
blood,  a  cry  in  which  the  poet  evidently  gives  vent 
to  his  own  hatred  1  since  the  solidarity,  to  use  that 
convenient  French  word,  of  Breton  and  Welsh  poetry 
is  so  complete,  that  the  ideas  of  the  one  may  be 
almost  certainly  assumed  not  to  have  been  wanting 
to  those  of  the  other.  The  question  is,  when  Taliesin 
says,  in  the  Battle  of  the  Trees:  "  I  have  been  in  many 
shapes  before  I  attained  a  congenial  form.  I  have 
been  a  narrow  blade  of  a  sword,  I  have  been  a  drop 
in  the  air,  I  have  been  a  shining  star,  I  have  been  a 
word  in  a  book,  I  have  been  a  book  in  the  beginning, 
I  have  been  a  light  in  a  lantern  a  year  and  a  half,  I 
have  been  a  bridge  for  passing  over  three-score  rivers  ; 
I  have  journeyed  as  an  eagle,  I  have  been  a  boat  on 
the  sea,  I  have  been  a  director  in  battle,  I  have  been 
a  sword  in  the  hand,  I  have  been  a  shield  in  fight,  I 
have  been  the  string  of  a  harp,  I  have  been  enchanted 
for  a  year  in  the  foam  of  water.  There  is  nothing  in 
which  I  have  not  been," — the  question  is,  have  these 
"  statements  of  the  universal  presence  of  the  wonder- 
working magician  "  nothing  which  distinguishes  them 
from  "  similar  creations  of  the  human  mind  in  times 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  53 

and  places  the  most  remote  ; "  have  they  not  an  in- 
wardness, a  severity  of  form,  a  solemnity  of  tone, 
which  indicates  the  still  reverberating  echo  of  a  pro- 
found doctrine  and  discipline,  such  as  was  Druidism  1 
Suppose  we  compare  Taliesin,  as  Mr.  Nash  invites  us, 
with  the  gleeman  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Traveller's  Song. 
Take  the  specimen  of  this  song  which  Mr.  Nash  him- 
self quotes:  "I  have  been  with  the  Israelites  and 
with  the  Essyringi,  with  the  Hebrews  and  with  the 
Indians  and  with  the  Egyptians  ;  I  have  been  with 
the  Medes  and  with  the  Persians  and  with  the 
Myrgings."  It  is  very  well  to  parallel  with  this 
extract  Taliesin's :  "I  carried  the  banner  before 
Alexander ;  I  was  in  Canaan  when  Absalom  was 
slain ;  I  was  on  the  horse's  crupper  of  Elias  and 
Enoch  ;  I  was  on  the  high  cross  of  the  merciful  son 
of  God  ;  I  was  the  chief  overseer  at  the  building  of 
the  tower  of  Nimrod ;  I  was  with  my  King  in  the 
manger  of  the  ass  ;  I  supported  Moses  through  the 
waters  of  Jordan ;  I  have  been  in  the  buttery  in  the 
land  of  the  Trinity  ;  it  is  not  known  what  is  the 
nature  of  its  meat  and  its  fish."  It  is  very  well  to 
say  that  these  assertions  "we  may  fairly  ascribe 
to  the  poetic  fancy  of  a  Christian  priest  of  the  thir- 
teenth century."  Certainly  we  may;  the  last  of 
Taliesin's  assertions  more  especially ;  though  one 
must  remark  at  the  same  time  that  the  Welshman 
shows  much  more  fire  and  imagination  than  the 
An'do-Saxon.  But  Taliesin  adds,  after  his  :  "I  was 
in  Canaan  when  Absalom  was  slain,"  "  /  was  in  the 
hall  of  Don  before  G-wydion  was  born  ;  "  he  adds,  after  : 


54  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

"  I  was  chief  overseer  at  the  building  of  the  tower  of 
Nimrod,"  "  i"  have  been  three  times  resident  in  the  castle 
of  Arianrod /"  he  adds,  after:  "I  was  at  the  cross 
with  Mary  Magdalene,"  "  i"  obtained  my  inspiration 
from  the  cauldron  of  Ceridwen."  And  finally,  after  the 
mediseval  touch  of  the  visit  to  the  buttery  in  the  land 
of  the  Trinity,  he  goes  off  at  score :  "I  have  been 
instructed  in  the  whole  system  of  the  universe;  I 
shall  be  till  the  day  of  judgment  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  I  have  been  in  an  uneasy  chair  above  Caer 
Sidin,  and  the  whirling  round  without  motion  between 
three  elements.  Is  it  not  the  wonder  of  the  world 
that  cannot  be  discovered  1 "  And  so  he  ends  the 
poem.  But  here  is  the  Celtic,  the  essential  part  of 
the  poem  :  it  is  here  that  the  "  formative  pressure  " 
has  been  really  in  operation ;  and  here  surely  is 
paganism  and  mythology  enough,  which  the  Christian 
priest  of  the  thirteenth  century  can  have  had  nothing 
to  do  with.  It  is  unscientific,  no  doubt,  to  interpret 
this  part  as  Edward  Davies  and  Mr.  Herbert  do ;  but 
it  is  unscientific  also  to  get  rid  of  it  as  Mr.  Nash  does. 
Wales  and  the  Welsh  genius  are  not  to  be  known 
without  this  part ;  and  the  true  critic  is  he  who  can 
best  disengage  its  real  significance. 

I  say,  then,  what  we  want  is  to  know  the  Celt  and 
his  genius ;  not  to  exalt  him  or  to  abase  him,  but  to 
know  him.  And  for  this  a  disinterested,  positive,  and 
constructive  criticism  is  needed.  Neither  his  friends 
nor  his  enemies  have  yet  given  us  much  of  this.  His 
friends  have  given  us  materials  for  criticism,  and  for 
these  we  ought  to  be  grateful;  his  enemies  have  given 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  55 

us  negative  criticism,  and  for  this,  too,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  we  may  be  grateful ;  but  the  criticism  we  really 
want  neither  of  them  has  yet  given  us. 

Philology,  however,  that  science  which  in  our  time 
has  had  so  many  successes,  has  not  been  abandoned 
by  her  good  fortune  in  touching  the  Celt ;  philology 
has  brought,  almost  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives, 
the  Celt  and  sound  criticism  together.  The  Celtic 
grammar  of  Zeuss,  whose  death  is  so  grievous  a  loss 
to  science,  offers  a  splendid  specimen  of  that  patient, 
disinterested  way  of  treating  objects  of  knowledge, 
which  is  the  best  and  most  attractive  characteristic 
of  Germany.  Zeuss  proceeds  neither  as  a  Celt-lover 
nor  as  a  Celt-hater ;  not  the  slightest  trace  of  a  wish 
to  glorify  Teutonism  or  to  abase  Celtism,  appears  in 
his  book.  The  only  desire  apparent  there,  is  the 
desire  to  know  his  object,  the  language  of  the  Celtic 
peoples,  as  it  really  is.  In  this  he  stands  as  a  model 
to  Celtic  students ;  and  it  has  been  given  to  him,  as 
a  reward  for  his  sound  method,  to  establish  certain 
points  which  are  henceforth  cardinal  points,  land- 
marks, in  all  the  discussion  of  Celtic  matters,  and 
which  no  one  had  so  established  before.  People 
talked  at  random  of  Celtic  writings  of  this  or  that 
age ;  Zeuss  has  definitely  fixed  the  age  of  what  we 
actually  have  of  these  writings.  To  take  the  Cymric 
group  of  languages  :  our  earliest  Cornish  document  is 
a  vocabulary  of  the  thirteenth  century ;  our  earliest 
Breton  document  is  a  short  description  of  an  estate 
in  a  deed  of  the  ninth  century ;  our  earliest  Welsh 
documents  are  Welsh  glosses  of  the  eighth  century  to 


56  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Eutychus,  the  grammarian,  and  Ovid's  Art  of  Love, 
and  the  verses  found  by  Edward  Lhuyd  in  the 
Juvencus  manuscript  at  Cambridge.  The  mention  of 
this  Juvencus  fragment,  by  the  bye,  suggests  the  differ- 
ence there  is  between  an  interested  and  a  disinterested 
critical  habit.  Mr.  Nash  deals  with  this  fragment ; 
but,  in  spite  of  all  his  great  acuteness  and  learning, 
because  he  has  a  bias,  because  he  does  not  bring  to 
these  matters  the  disinterested  spirit  they  need,  he  is 
capable  of  getting  rid,  cpuite  unwarrantably,  of  a  par- 
ticular word  in  the  fragment  which  does  not  suit  him; 
his  dealing  with  the  verses  is  an  advocate's  dealing,  not 
a  critic's.     Of  this  sort  of  thing  Zeuss  is  incapable. 

The  test  which  Zeuss  used  for  establishing  the 
age  of  these  documents  is  a  scientific  test,  the  test  of 
orthography  and  of  declensional  and  syntactical  forms. 
These  matters  are  far  out  of  my  province,  but  what 
is  clear,  sound,  and  simple,  has  a  natural  attraction 
for  us  all,  and  one  feels  a  pleasure  in  repeating  it. 
It  is  the  grand  sign  of  age,  Zeuss  says,  in  Welsh  and 
Irish  words,  when  what  the  grammarians  call  the 
"  destitutio  tenuium "  has  not  yet  taken  place ;  when 
the  sharp  consonants  have  not  yet  been  changed  into 
flat,  p  or  t  into  b  or  d  ;  when,  for  instance,  map,  a 
son,  has  not  yet  become  mob  ;  coet,  a  wood,  coed  ;  ocet, 
a  harrow,  oged.  This  is  a  clear,  scientific  test  to  apply, 
and  a  test  of  which  the  accuracy  can  be  verified  ;  I 
do  not  say  that  Zeuss  was  the  first  person  who  knew 
this  test  or  applied  it,  but  I  say  that  he  is  the  first 
person  who  in  dealing  with  Celtic  matters  has  invari- 
ably proceeded  by  means  of  this  and  similar  scientific 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  57 

tests ;  the  first  person,  therefore,  the  body  of  whose 
work  has  a  scientific,  stable  character ;  and  so  he 
stands  as  a  model  to  all  Celtic  inquirers. 

His  influence  has  already  been  most  happy ;  and 
as  I  have  enlarged  on  a  certain  failure  in  criticism  of 
Eugene  O'Curry's, — whose  business,  after  all,  was  the 
description  and  classification  of  materials  rather  than 
criticism, — let  me  show,  by  another  example  from 
Eugene  O'Curry,  this  good  influence  of  Zeuss  upon 
Celtic  studies.  Eugene  O'Curry  wants  to  establish 
that  compositions  of  an  older  date  than  the  twelfth 
century  existed  in  Ireland  in  the  twelfth  century,  and 
thus  he  proceeds.  He  takes  one  of  the  great  extant 
Irish  manuscripts,  the  Leabhar  na  h'  Uidhre ;  or  Book 
of  the  Dun  Coiv.  The  compiler  of  this  book  was,  he 
says,  a  certain  Maelmuiri,  a  member  of  the  religious 
house  of  Cluainmacnois.  This  he  establishes  from  a 
passage  in  the  manuscript  itself  :  "  This  is  a  trial  of 
his  pen  here,  by  Maelmuiri,  son  of  the  son  of  Conn 
na  m'Bocht."  The  date  of  Maelmuiri  he  establishes 
from  a  passage  in  the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  under 
the  year  1106  :  "  Maelmuiri,  son  of  the  son  of  Conn 
na  m'Bocht,  was  killed  in  the  middle  of  the  great 
stone  church  of  Cluainmacnois,  by  a  party  of  robbers." 
Thus  he  gets  the  date  of  the  Book  of  the  Dun  Cow. 
This  book  contains  an  elegy  on  the  death  of  St. 
Columb.  Now,  even  before  1106,  the  language  of 
this  elegy  was  so  old  as  to  require  a  gloss  to  make  it 
intelligible,  for  it  is  accompanied  by  a  gloss  written 
between  the  lines.  This  gloss  quotes,  for  the  expla- 
nation of  obsolete  words,  a  number  of  more  ancient 


58  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

compositions ;  and  these  compositions,  therefore  must, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  have  been 
still  in  existence.  Nothing  can  be  sounder;  every 
step  is  proved,  and  fairly  proved,  as  one  goes  along. 
O'Curry  thus  affords  a  good  specimen  of  the  sane 
mode  of  proceeding  so  much  wanted  in  Celtic  re- 
searches, and  so  little  practised  by  Edward  Davies 
and  his  brethren  ;  and  to  found  this  sane  method, 
Zeuss,  by  the  example  he  sets  in  his  own  department 
of  philology,  has  mainly  contributed. 

Science's  reconciling  power,  too,  on  which  I  have 
already  touched,  philology,  in  her  Celtic  researches, 
again  and  again  illustrates.  Races  and  languages 
have  been  absurdly  joined,  and  unity  has  been  often 
rashly  assumed  at  stages  where  one  was  far,  very  far, 
from  having  yet  really  reached  unity.  Science  has 
and  will  long  have  to  be  a  divider  and  a  separatist, 
breaking  arbitrary  and  fanciful  connections,  and  dis- 
sipating dreams  of  a  premature  and  impossible  unity. 
Still,  science, — true  science, — recognises  in  the  bottom 
of  her  soul  a  law  of  ultimate  fusion,  of  conciliation. 
To  reach  this,  but  to  reach  it  legitimately,  she  tends. 
She  draws,  for  instance,  towards  the  same  idea  which 
fills  her  elder  and  diviner  sister,  poetry, — the  idea  of 
the  substantial  unity  of  man ;  though  she  draws  to- 
wards it  by  roads  of  her  own.  But  continually  she 
is  showing  us  affinity  where  Ave  imagined  there  was 
isolation.  What  schoolboy  of  us  has  not  rummaged 
his  Greek  dictionary  in  vain  for  a  satisfactory  account 
of  that  old  name  for  the  Peloponnese,  the  Apian 
Land  ?  and  within  the  limits  of  Greek  itself  there  is 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  59 

none.  But  the  Scythian  name  for  earth,  "  apia," 
watery,  water-issued,  meaning  first  isle  and  then  land — 
this  name,  which  we  find  in  "  avia,"  Scandinavia,  and 
in  "  ey "  for  Alderne?/,  not  only  explains  the  Apian 
Land  of  Sophocles  for  us,  but  points  the  way  to  a 
whole  world  of  relationships  of  which  we  knew 
nothing.  The  Scythians  themselves  again, — obscure, 
far-separated  Mongolian  people  as  they  used  to  ap- 
pear to  us, — when  we  find  that  they  are  essentially 
Teutonic  and  Indo-European,  their  very  name  the 
same  word  as  the  common  Latin  word  "  scutum,"  the 
shielded  people,  what  a  surprise  they  give  us  !  And 
then,  before  we  have  recovered  from  this  surprise  we 
learn  that  the  name  of  their  father  and  god,  Targi- 
tavus,  carries  us  I  know  not  how  much  further  into 
familiar  company.  This  divinity,  Shining  with  the 
targe,  the  Greek  Hercules,  the  Sun,  contains  in  the 
second  half  of  his  name,  tavus,  "  shining,"  a  won- 
derful cement  to  hold  times  and  nations  together. 
Tavus,  "shining,"  from  "  tava  " — in  Sanscrit,  as  well 
as  Scythian,  "to  burn"  or  "shine," — is  Divus,  dies, 
Zeus,  0eos,  Diva,  and  I  know  not  how  much  more ; 
and  Taviti,  the  bright  and  burnt,  fire,  the  place  of 
fire,  the  hearth,  the  centre  of  the  family,  becomes  the 
family  itself,  just  as  our  word  family,  the  Latin 
familia,  is  from  thymeU,  the  sacred  centre  of  fire. 
The  hearth  comes  to  mean  home.  Then  from  home 
it  comes  to  mean  the  group  of  homes,  the  tribe  ; 
from  the  tribe  the  entire  nation ;  and  in  this  sense  of 
nation  or  people,  the  Avord  appears  in  Gothic,  Norse, 
Celtic,   and    Persian,   as   well   as   in   Scythian ;    the 


60  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Theuthisks,  Deutschen,  Tudesques,  are  the  men  of  one 
theuth,  nation,  or  people ;  and  of  this  our  name  Ger- 
mans, itself  is,  perhaps,  only  the  Roman  translation, 
meaning  the  men  of  one  germ  or  stock.  The  Celtic 
divinity,  Teutates,  has  his  name  from  the  Celtic  teuta, 
people ;  taviti,  fire,  appearing  here  in  its  secondary 
and  derived  sense  of  people,  just  as  it  does  in  its  own 
Scythian  language  in  Targitavus's  second  name,  Tavit- 
varus,  Teutaros,  the  protector  of  the  people.  Another 
Celtic  divinity,  the  Hesus  of  Lucan,  finds  his  brother 
in  the  Gaisos,  the  sword,  symbolising  the  god  of 
battles  of  the  Teutonic  Scythians.1     And  after  philo- 

1  See  Les  Scythes  les  Ancitres  des  Peuplcs  Germaniqucs  el 
Slaves,  par  F.  G.  Bergmann,  professeur  a  la  faculte  des  Lettres 
de  Strasbourg  :  Colmar,  1858.  But  Professor  Bergmann's  ety- 
mologies are  often,  says  Lord  Strangford,  "  false  lights,  held  by 
an  uncertain  hand."  And  Lord  Strangford  continues  : — "The 
Apian  land  certainly  meant  the  watery  land,  Meer-icmschlungen, 
among  the  pre-Hellenic  Greeks,  just  as  the  same  land  is  called 
Morea  by  the  modern  post-Hellenic  or  Romaic  Greeks  from 
more,  the  name  for  the  sea  in  the  Slavonic  vernacular  of  its 
inhabitants  during  the  heart  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  it  is  only 
connected  by  a  remote  and  secondary  affinity,  if  connected  at  all, 
with  the  avia  of  Scandinavia,  assuming  that  to  be  the  true 
German  word  for  water,  which,  if  it  had  come  down  to  us  in 
Gothic,  would  have  been  avi,  genitive  aujds,  and  not  a  mere 
Latinised  termination.  Scythian  is  surely  a  negative  rather 
than  a  positive  term,  much  like  our  Indian,  or  the  Turanian 
of  modern  ethnologists,  used  to  comprehend  nomads  and  bar- 
barians of  all  sorts  and  faces  north  and  east  of  the  Black  and 
Caspian  seas.  It  is  unsafe  to  connect  their  name  with  anything 
as  yet ;  it  is  quite  as  likely  that  it  refers  to  the  bow  and 
arrow  as  to  the  shield,  and  is  connected  with  our  word  to  shoot, 
seeotan,  skiwtan,  Lithuanian  szau-ti.  Some  of  the  Scythian 
peoples  may  have  been  Anarian,  Allophylic,  Mongolian ;  some 
were  demonstrably  Aryan,  and  not  only  that,  but  Iranian  as 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  61 

logy  has  thus  related  to  each  other  the  Celt  and  the 
Teuton,  she  takes  another  branch  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean family,  the  Sclaves,  and  shows  us  them  as 
having  the  same  name  with  the  German  Suevi,  the 
solar  people ;  the  common  ground  here,  too,  being 
that  grand  point  of  union,  the  sun,  fire.  So,  also,  we 
find  Mr.  Meyer,  whose  Celtic  studies  I  just  now  men- 
well,  as  is  Lest  shown  in  a  memoir  read  before  the  Berlin 
Academy  this  last  year  ;  the  evidence  having  been  first  indicated 
in  the  rough  by  Schaffarik  the  Slavonic  antiquary.  Coins, 
glosses,  proper  names,  and  inscriptions  prove  it.  Targitaos  (not 
-tavus)  and  the  rest  is  guess-work  or  wrong.  Herodotus's  Ta/3n-J 
for  the  goddess  Vesta  is  not  connected  with  tbe  root  div  whence 
Devas,  Deus,  etc. ,  but  the  root  tap,  in  Latin  tep  (of  tepere,  tepe- 
facere),  Slavonic  tepl,  topi  (for  Up  or  top),  in  modern  Persian 
tab.  Thymcle  refers  to  the  hearth  as  the  place  of  smoke  (dvw, 
thus,  fumus),  but  familia  denotes  household  from  famulus  for 
fagmulus,  the  root  fag  being  equated  with  the  Sansk.  bhaj, 
servira.  Lucan's  Hesus  or  Esus  may  fairly  be  compared  with 
the  Welsh  Hu  Gadarn  by  legitimate  process,  but  no  letter- 
change  can  justify  his  connection  with  Gaisos,  the  spear,  not 
the  sword,  Virgil's  gcesicm,  A.S.  gdr,  our  verb  to  gore,  retained 
in  its  outer  form  in  gar-fish.  For  Theuthisks,  lege  Thiudisks, 
from  thiuda,  pqpulus ;  in  old  high  German  Diutisk,  Diotisk, 
popularis,  vulgaris,  the  country  vernacular  as  distinguished  from 
the  cultivated  Latin  ;  hence  the  word  Dutch,  Bcutsch.  With 
our  ancestors  tliedd  stood  for  nation  generally  and  gethedde  for 
any  speech.  Our  diet  in  the  political  sense  is  the  same  word, 
but  borrowed  from  our  German  cousins,  not  inherited  from  our 
fathers.  The  modern  Celtic  form  is  the  Irish  tuath,  in  ancient 
Celtic  it  must  have  been  teuta,  touta.  of  which  we  actually  have 
the  adjective  toutius  in  the  Gaulish  inscription  of  Nismes.  In 
Oscan  we  have  it  as  turta,  tuta,  its  adjective  being  handed 
down  in  Livy's  meddix  tuticus,  the  mayor  or  chief  magistrate  of 
the  tuta.  In  the  Umbrian  inscriptions  it  is  tola.  In  Lithuanian 
tauta,  the  country  opposed  to  the  town,  and  in  old  Prussian 
tauta,  the  country  generally,  en  Prusislcan  tautan,  im  Land  zu 
Preusseri.'" 


62  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

tioned,  harping  again  and  again  on  the  connection 
even  in  Europe,  if  you  go  hack  far  enough,  hetween 
Celt  and  German.  So,  after  all  we  have  heard,  and 
truly  heard  of  the  diversity  hetween  all  things 
Semitic  and  all  things  Indo-European,  there  is  now 
an  Italian  philologist  at  work  upon  the  relationship 
between  Sanscrit  and  Hebrew. 

Both  in  small  and  great  things,  philology,  dealing 
with  Celtic  matters,  has  exemplified  this  tending  of 
science  towards  unity.  Who  has  not  been  puzzled 
by  the  relation  of  the  Scots  with  Ireland — that  vetus 
et  major  Scotia,  as  Colgan  calls  it  1  Who  does  not  feel 
what  pleasure  Zeuss  brings  us  when  he  suggests  that 
Gael,  the  name  for  the  Irish  Celt,  and  Scot,  are  at 
bottom  the  same  word,  both  having  their  origin  in  a 
word  meaning  wind,  and  both  signifying  the  violent 
stormy  people  21  Who  does  not  feel  his  mind  agreeably 
cleared  about  our  friends  the  Fenians,  when  he  learns 
that  the  root  of  their  name,  fen,  "  white,"  appears  in 
the  hero  Fingal ;  in  Gwynned,  the  Welsh  name  for 
North  Wales ;  in  the  Roman  Venedotia ;  in  Vannes 
in  Brittany  ;  in  Venice  1  The  very  name  of  Ireland, 
some  say,  comes  from  the  famous  Sanscrit  word  Arya, 
the  land  of  the  Aryans,  or  noble  men ;  although  the 
weight  of  opinion  seems  to  be  in  favour  of  connecting 

1  Lord  Strangford  observes  here: — "The  original  forms  of 
Gael  should  be  mentioned — Gaedil,  Goidil :  in  modern  Gaelic 
orthography  Gaoidheal  where  the  dh  is  not  realised  in  pronuncia- 
tion. There  is  nothing  impossible  in  the  connection  of  the  root 
of  this  with  that  of  Scot,  if  the  s  of  the  latter  be  merely  pros- 
thetic. But  the  whole  thing  is  in  nubibus,  and  given  as  a  guess 
only." 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  63 

it  rather  with  another  Sanscrit  word,  avara,  occidental, 
the  western  land  or  isle  of  the  west.1  But,  at  any 
rate,  who  that  has  been  brought  up  to  think  the  Celts 
utter  aliens  from  us  and  our  culture,  can  come  without 
a  start  of  sympathy  upon  such  words  as  heol  (sol),  or 
buaist  (fuisti)1?  or  upon  such  a  sentence  as  this,  "Peris 
Duw  duifunnaun"  ("God  prepared  two  fountains")? 
Or  when  Mr.  "Whitley  Stokes,  one  of  the  very  ablest 
scholars  formed  in  Zeuss's  school,  a  born  philologist, — 
he  now  occupies,  alas  !  a  post  under  the  Government 
of  India,  instead  of  a  chair  of  philology  at  home,  and 
makes  one  think  mournfully  of  Montesquieu's  saying, 
that  had  he  been  an  Englishman  he  should  never  have 
produced  his  great  work,  but  have  caught  the  con- 
tagion of  practical  life,  and  devoted  himself  to  what 
is  called  "rising  in  the  world," — when  Mr.  Whitley 
Stokes,  in  his  edition  of  Cormac's  Glossary,  holds  up 
the  Irish  word  traitli,  the  sea,  and  makes  us  remark 
that,  though  the  names  Triton,  Amphitrite,  and  those 
of  corresponding  Indian  and  Zend  divinities,  point  to 
the  meaning  sea,  yet  it  is  only  Irish  which  actually 
supplies  the  vocable,  how  delightfully  that  brings 
Ireland  into  the  Indo-European  concert !  What  a 
wholesome  buffet  it  gives  to  Lord  Lyndhurst's  aliena- 
tion doctrines  ! 

To  go  a  little  farther.     Of  the  two  great  Celtic 
divisions  of  language,  the  Gaelic  and  the  Cymric,  the 

1  "  The  name  of  Erin,"  says  Lord  Strangford,  "is  treated  at 
length  in  a  masterly  note  by  Whitley  Stokes  in  the  first  series 
of  Max  Midler's  lectures  (4th  ed.)  p.  255,  where  its  earliest 
tangible  form  is  shown  to  have  been  Iverio.  Pictet's  connection 
with  Arya  is  quite  baseless." 


64  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Gaelic,  say  the  philologists,  is  more  related  to  the 
younger,  more  synthetic,  group  of  languages,  Sanscrit, 
Greek,  Zend,  Latin,  and  Teutonic ;  the  Cymric  to  the 
older,  more  analytic  Turanian  group.  Of  the  more 
synthetic  Aryan  group,  again,  Zend  and  Teutonic  are, 
in  their  turn,  looser  and  more  analytic  than  Sanscrit 
and  Greek,  more  in  sympathy  with  the  Turanian  group 
and  with  Celtic.  What  possibilities  of  affinity  and 
influence  are  here  hinted  at ;  what  lines  of  inquiry, 
worth  exploring,  at  any  rate,  suggest  themselves  to 
one's  mind.  By  the  forms  of  its  language  a  nation 
expresses  its  very  self.  Our  language  is  the  loosest, 
the  most  analytic,  of  all  European  languages.  And 
we,  then,  what  are  we  1  what  is  England.  I  will  not 
answer,  A  vast  obscure  Cymric  basis  with  a  vast  visible 
Teutonic  superstructure ;  but  I  will  say  that  that 
answer  sometimes  suggests  itself,  at  any  rate, — some- 
times knocks  at  our  mind's  door  for  admission ;  and 
we  begin  to  cast  about  and  see  whether  it  is  to  be  let 
in. 

But  the  forms  of  its  language  are  not  our  only  key 
to  a  people ;  what  it  says  in  its  language,  its  literature, 
is  the  great  key,  and  we  must  get  back  to  literature. 
The  literature  of  the  Celtic  peoples  has  not  yet  had 
its  Zeuss,  and  greatly  it  wants  him.  We  need  a  Zeuss 
to  apply  to  Celtic  literature,  to  all  its  vexed  questions 
of  dates,  authenticity,  and  significance,  the  criticism, 
the  sane  method,  the  disinterested  endeavour  to  get 
at  the  real  facts,  which  Zeuss  has  shown  in  dealing 
with  Celtic  language.  Science  is  good  in  itself,  and 
therefore  Celtic  literature, — the  Celt-haters  having 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  65 

failed  to  prove  it  a  bubble, — Celtic  literature  is  interest- 
ing, merely  as  an  object  of  knowledge.  But  it  rein- 
forces and  redoubles  our  interest  in  Celtic  literature 
if  we  find  that  here,  too,  science  exercises  the  recon- 
ciling, the  uniting  influence  of  which  I  have  said  so 
much ;  if  we  find  here,  more  than  anywhere  else, 
traces  of  kinship,  and  the  most  essential  sort  of  kin- 
ship, spiritual  kinship,  between  us  and  the  Celt,  of 
which  we  had  never  dreamed.  I  settle  nothing,  and 
can  settle  nothing  ;  I  have  not  the  special  knowledge 
needed  for  that.  I  have  no  pretension  to  do  more 
than  to  try  and  awaken  interest ;  to  seize  on  hints, 
to  point  out  indications,  which,  to  any  one  with  a 
feeling  for  literature,  suggest  themselves;  to  stimulate 
other  inquirers.  I  must  surely  be  without  the  bias 
which  has  so  often  rendered  Welsh  and  Irish  students 
extravagant;  why,  my  very  name  expresses  that 
peculiar  Semitico- Saxon  mixture  which  makes  the 
typical  Englishman ;  I  can  have  no  ends  to  serve  in 
finding  in  Celtic  literature  more  than  is  there.  What 
is  there,  is  for  me  the  only  question. 

III. 

We  have  seen  how  philology  carries  us  towards 
ideas  of  affinity  of  race  which  are  new  to  us.  But 
it  is  evident  that  this  affinity,  even  if  proved,  can  be 
no  very  potent  affair,  unless  it  goes  beyond  the 
stage  at  which  we  have  hitherto  observed  it. 
Affinity  between  races  still,  so  to  speak,  in  their 
mother's  womb,  counts  for  something,   indeed,   but 

VOL.  IL  F 


66  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

cannot  count  for  very  much.      So  long  as  Celt  and 
Teuton  are  in  their  embryo  rudimentary  state,  or, 
at  least,  no  such  great  while  out  of   their   cradle, 
still  engaged  in  their  wanderings,  changes  of  place 
and  struggle  for  development,  so  long  as  they  have 
not   yet   crystallised   into   solid   nations,    they   may 
touch  and  mix  in  passing,  and  yet  very  little  come 
of  it.     It  is  when  the  embryo  has  grown  and  solidi- 
fied into  a  distinct  nation,  into  the  Gaul  or  German 
of  history,   when  it  has  finally  acquired   the   char- 
acters which  make  the  Gaul  of  history  what  he  is, 
the  German  of  history  what  he  is,  that  contact  and 
mixture  are  important,  and  may  leave  a  long  train 
of  effects;  for  Celt  and  Teuton  by  this  time  have 
their  formed,  marked,  national,  ineffaceable  qualities 
to  oppose  or  to  communicate.     The  contact  of  the 
German  of  the  Continent  with  the  Celt  was  in  the 
prehistoric  times,  and  the  definite  German  type,  as 
we  know  it,  was  fixed  later,  and  from  the  time  when 
it  became  fixed  was  not  influenced  by  the  Celtic  type. 
But  here  in  our  country,  in  historic  times,  long  after 
the   Celtic   embryo   had   crystallised    into   the   Celt 
proper,  long  after  the  Germanic  embryo  had  crystal- 
lised into  the  German  proper,  there  was  an  important 
contact  between  the  two  peoples  ;  the  Saxons  invaded 
the  Britons  and  settled  themselves  in  the  Britons' 
country.     Well,  then,  here  was  a  contact  which  one 
might  expect  would  leave  its  traces ;  if  the  Saxons 
got  the  upper  hand,  as  we   all  know  they  did,  and 
made  our  country  be  England  and  us  be  English, 
there  must  yet,  one  would  think,  be  some  trace  of 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  67 

the  Saxon  having  met  the  Briton ;  there  must  be 
some  Celtic  vein  or  other  running  through  us. 
Many  people  say  there  is  nothing  at  all  of  the 
kind,  absolutely  nothing ;  the  Saturday  Review  treats 
these  matters  of  ethnology  with  great  power  and 
learning,  and  the  Saturday  Review  says  we  are  "a 
nation  into  which  a  Norman  element,  like  a  much 
smaller  Celtic  element,  was  so  completely  absorbed 
that  it  is  vain  to  seek  after  Norman  or  Celtic  ele- 
ments in  any  modern  Englishman."  And  the  other 
day  at  Zurich  I  read  a  long  essay  on  English  litera- 
ture by  one  of  the  professors  there,  in  which  the 
writer  observed,  as  a  remarkable  thing,  that  while 
other  countries  conquered  by  the  Germans, — France, 
for  instance,  and  Italy, — had  ousted  all  German  in- 
fluence from  their  genius  and  literature,  there  were 
two  countries,  not  originally  Germanic,  but  conquered 
by  the  Germans,  England  and  German  Switzerland, 
of  which  the  genius  and  the  literature  were  purely 
and  unmixedly  German ;  and  this  he  laid  down  as  a 
position  which  nobody  would  dream  of  challenging. 

I  say  it  is  strange  that  this  should  be  so,  and  we 
in  particular  have  reason  for  inquiring  whether  it 
really  is  so ;  because  though,  as  I  have  said,  even  as 
a  matter  of  science  the  Celt  has  a  claim  to  be  known, 
and  we  have  an  interest  in  knowing  him,  yet  this 
interest  is  wonderfully  enhanced  if  we  find  him  to 
have  actually  a  part  in  us.  The  question  is  to  be 
tried  by  external  and  by  internal  evidence;  the 
language  and  the  physical  type  of  our  race  afford 
certain  data  for  trying  it,  and  other  data  are  afforded 


68  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

by  our  literature,  genius,  and  spiritual  production 
generally.  Data  of  this  second  kind  belong  to  the 
province  of  the  literary  critic ;  data  of  the  first  kind 
to  the  province  of  the  philologist  and  of  the  phy- 
siologist. 

The  province  of  the  philologist  and  of  the  phy- 
siologist is  not  mine ;  but  this  whole  question  as  to 
the  mixture  of  Celt  with  Saxon  in  us  has  been  so 
little  explored,  people  have  been  so  prone  to  settle 
it  off-hand  according  to  their  prepossessions,  that 
even  on  the  philological  and  physiological  side  of  it 
I  must  say  a  few  words  in  passing.  Surely  it  must 
strike  with  surprise  any  one  who  thinks  of  it,  to 
find  that  without  any  immense  inpouring  of  a  whole 
people,  that  by  mere  expeditions  of  invaders  having 
to  come  over  the  sea,  and  in  no  greater  numbers 
than  the  Saxons,  so  far  as  we  can  make  out,  actually 
came,  the  old  occupants  of  this  island,  the  Celtic 
Britons,  should  have  been  completely  annihilated, 
or  even  so  completely  absorbed  that  it  is  vain  to 
seek  after  Celtic  elements  in  the  existing  English 
race.  Of  deliberate  wholesale  extermination  of  the 
Celtic  race,  all  of  them  who  could  not  fly  to  Wales 
or  Scotland,  we  hear  nothing ;  and  without  some 
such  extermination  one  would  suppose  that  a  great 
mass  of  them  must  have  remained  in  the  country, 
their  lot  the  obscure  and,  so  to  speak,  underground 
lot  of  a  subject  race,  but  yet  insensibly  getting  mixed 
with  their  conquerors,  and  their  blood  entering  into 
the  composition  of  a  new  people,  in  which  the  stock 
of  the  conquerors  counts  for  most,  but  the  stock  of 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  69 

the   conquered,    too,    counts    for   something.      How 
little  the  triumph  of  the  conqueror's  laws,  manners, 
and  language,  proves  the  extinction  of  the  old  race 
we  may  see  by  looking  at  France ;  Gaul  was  Latin- 
ised in  language,  manners,   and   laws,  and  yet  her 
people  remained  essentially  Celtic.     The  Germanisa- 
tion  of  Britain  went  far  deeper  than  the  Latinisation 
of  France,  and  not  only  laws,  manners,  and  language, 
but  the  main  current  of  the  blood,  became  Germanic  ; 
but  how,  without  some  process  of  radical  extirpation, 
of  which,  as  I  say,  there  is  no  evidence,  can  there 
have  failed  to  subsist  in  Britain,  as  in  Gaul,  a  Celtic 
current  too  1     The  indications  of  this  in  our  language 
have  never  yet  been  thoroughly  searched  out ;  the 
Celtic  names  of  places  prove  nothing,  of  course,  as 
to  the  point  here  in  question ;  they  come  from  the 
prehistoric  times,  the  times  before  the  nations,  Ger- 
manic or  Celtic,  had  crystallised,  and  they  are  every- 
where,  as  the  impetuous  Celt  was  formerly  every- 
where,— in  the  Alps,  the  Apennines,  the  Cevennes, 
the  Rhine,  the  Po,  as  well  as  in  the  Thames,   the 
Humber,  Cumberland,  London.     But  it  is  said  that 
the  words  of  Celtic  origin  for  things  having  to  do 
with  every-day  peaceful  life, — the  life  of  a  settled 
nation, — words  like  basket  (to  take  an  instance  which 
all  the  world  knows)  form  a  much  larger  body  in  our 
language  than  is  commonly  supposed ;  it  is  said  that 
a  number  of  our  raciest,  most  idiomatic,  popular  words 
— for  example,  bam,  kick,  whop,  twaddle,  fudge,  hitch, 
muggy, — are  Celtic.     These  assertions  require  to  be 
carefully  examined,  and  it  by  no  means  follows  that 


70  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

because  an  English  word  is  found  in  Celtic,  therefore 
we  get  it  from  thence ;  but  they  have  not  yet  had 
the  attention  which,  as  illustrating  through  language 
this  matter  of  the  subsistence  and  intermingling  in 
our  nation  of  a  Celtic  part,  they  merit. 

Nor  have  the  physiological  data  which  illustrate 
this  matter  had  much  more  attention  from  us  in  Eng- 
land. But  in  France,  a  physician,  half  English  by 
blood  though  a  Frenchman  by  home  and  language, 
Monsieur  W.  F.  Edwards,  brother  to  Monsieur  Milne- 
Edwards,  the  well-known  zoologist,  published  in  1839 
a  letter  to  Monsieur  Amed6e  Thierry  with  this  title  : 
Des  Caraderes  Physiologiques  des  Races  Humaines  con- 
sid&ris  dans  lews  Rapports  avec  VHistoire.  The  letter 
attracted  great  attention  on  the  Continent;  it  fills 
not  much  more  than  a  hundred  pages,  and  they  are 
a  hundred  pages  which  well  deserve  reading  and  re- 
reading. Monsieur  Thierry  in  his  Histoire  des  Gaidois 
had  divided  the  population  of  Gaul  into  certain 
groups,  and  the  object  of  Monsieur  Edwards  was  to 
try  this  division  by  physiology.  Groups  of  men 
have,  he  says,  their  physical  type  which  distinguishes 
them,  as  well  as  their  language ;  the  traces  of  this 
physical  type  endure  as  the  traces  of  language  endure, 
and  physiology  is  enabled  to  verify  history  by  them. 
Accordingly,  he  determines  the  physical  type  of  each 
of  the  two  great  Celtic  families,  the  Gaels  and  the 
Cymris,  who  are  said  to  have  been  distributed  in  a 
certain  order  through  Gaul,  and  then  he  tracks  these 
types  in  the  population  of  France  at  the  present  day, 
and  so  verifies  the  alleged  original  order  of  distribu- 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  71 

tion.  In  doing  this,  he  makes  excursions  into  neigh- 
bouring countries  where  the  Gaels  and  the  Cymris 
have  been,  and  he  declares  that  in  England  he  finds 
abundant  traces  of  the  physical  type  which  he  has 
established  as  the  Cymric,  still  subsisting  in  our  popu- 
lation, and  having  descended  from  the  old  British 
possessors  of  our  soil  before  the  Saxon  conquest. 
But  if  we  are  to  believe  the  current  English  opinion, 
says  Monsieur  Edwards,  the  stock  of  these  old  British 
possessors  is  clean  gone.  On  this  opinion  he  makes 
the  following  comment : — 

"  In  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Saxons,  the 
Britons  were  no  longer  an  independent  nation,  nor 
even  a  people  with  any  civil  existence  at  all.  For 
history,  therefore,  they  were  dead,  above  all  for 
history  as  it  was  then  written;  but  they  had  not 
perished;  they  still  lived  on,  and  undoubtedly  in 
such  numbers  as  the  remains  of  a  great  nation,  in 
spite  of  its  disasters,  might  still  be  expected  to  keep. 
That  the  Britons  were  destroyed  or  expelled  from 
England,  properly  so  called,  is,  as  I  have  said,  a 
popular  opinion  in  that  country.  It  is  founded  on 
the  exaggeration  of  the  writers  of  history;  but  in 
these  very  writers,  when  we  come  to  look  closely  at 
what  they  say,  we  find  the  confession  that  the  remains 
of  this  people  were  reduced  to  a  state  of  strict  servi- 
tude. Attached  to  the  soil,  they  will  have  shared  in 
that  emancipation  which  during  the  course  of  the 
Middle  Ages  gradually  restored  to  political  life  the 
mass  of  the  population  in  the  countries  of  Western 
Europe  ;  recovering  by  slow  degrees  their  rights  with- 


72  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

out  resuming  their  name,  and  rising  gradually  with 
the  rise  of  industry,  they  will  have  got  spread  through 
all  ranks  of  society.  The  gradualness  of  this  move- 
ment, and  the  ohscurity  which  enwrapped  its  begin- 
nings, allowed  the  contempt  of  the  conqueror  and  the 
shame  of  the  conquered  to  become  fixed  feelings ; 
and  so  it  turns  out,  that  an  Englishman  who  now 
thinks  himself  sprung  from  the  Saxons  or  the  Nor- 
mans, is  often  in  reality  the  descendant  of  the 
Britons." 

So  physiology,  as  well  as  language,  incomplete 
though  the  application  of  their  tests  to  this  matter 
has  hitherto  been,  may  lead  us  to  hesitate  before 
accepting  the  round  assertion  that  it  is  vain  to  search 
for  Celtic  elements  in  any  modern  Englishman.  But 
it  is  not  only  by  the  tests  of  physiology  and  language 
that  we  can  try  this  matter.  As  there  are  for  physi- 
ology physical  marks,  such  as  the  square  heads  of  the 
German,  the  round  head  of  the  Gael,  the  oval  head 
of  the  Cymri,  which  determine  the  type  of  a  people, 
so  for  criticism  there  are  spiritual  marks  which  deter- 
mine the  type,  and  make  us  speak  of  the  Greek 
genius,  the  Teutonic  genius,  the  Celtic  genius,  and  so 
on.  Here  is  another  test  at  our  service ;  and  this 
test,  too,  has  never  yet  been  thoroughly  employed. 
Foreign  critics  have  indeed  occasionally  hazarded  the 
idea  that  in  English  poetry  there  is  a  Celtic  element 
traceable;  and  Mr.  Morley,  in  his  very  readable  as 
Avell  as  very  useful  book  on  the  English  writers  before 
Chaucer,  has  a  sentence  which  struck  my  attention 
when  I  read  it,  because  it  expresses  an  opinion  which 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  73 

I,  too,  have  long  held.  Mr.  Morley  says : — "  The 
main  current  of  English  literature  cannot  be  discon- 
nected from  the  lively  Celtic  wit  in  which  it  has  one 
of  its  sources.  The  Celts  do  not  form  an  utterly 
distinct  part  of  our  mixed  population.  But  for  early, 
frequent,  and  various  contact  with  the  race  that  in  its 
half-barbarous  days  invented  Ossian's  dialogues  with 
St.  Patrick,  and  that  quickened  afterwards  the  North- 
men's blood  in  France,  Germanic  England  would  not 
have  produced  a  Shakspeare."  But  there  Mr.  Morley 
leaves  the  matter.  He  indicates  this  Celtic  element 
and  influence,  but  he  does  not  show  us, — it  did  not 
come  within  the  scope  of  his  work  to  show  us, — how 
this  influence  has  declared  itself.  Unlike  the  physio- 
logical test,  or  the  linguistic  test,  this  literary, 
spiritual  test  is  one  which  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed 
to  try  my  hand  at  applying.  I  say  that  there  is  a 
Celtic  element  in  the  English  nature,  as  well  as  a 
Germanic  element,  and  that  this  element  manifests 
itself  in  our  spirit  and  literature.  But  before  I  try 
to  point  out  how  it  manifests  itself,  it  may  be  as  well 
to  get  a  clear  notion  of  what  we  mean  by  a  Celtic 
element,  a  Germanic  element;  what  characters,  that 
is,  determine  for  us  the  Celtic  genius,  the  Germanic 
genius,  as  we  commonly  conceive  the  two. 

IV. 

Let  me  repeat  what  I  have  often  said  of  the  char- 
acteristics which  mark  the  English  spirit,  the  English 
genius.     This  spirit,  this  genius,  judged,  to  be  sure, 


74  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

rather  from  a  friend's  than  an  enemy's  point  of  view, 
yet  judged  on  the  whole  fairly,  is  characterised,  I 
have  repeatedly  said,  by  energy  with  honesty.  Take 
away  some  of  the  energy  which  comes  to  us,  as  I 
believe,  in  part  from  Celtic  and  Roman  sources ;  in- 
stead of  energy,  say  rather  steadiness  ;  and  you  have 
the  Germanic  genius :  steadiness  with  honesty.  It  is 
evident  how  nearly  the  two  characterisations  approach 
one  another ;  and  yet  they  leave,  as  we  shall  see,  a 
great  deal  of  room  for  difference.  Steadiness  with 
honesty ;  the  danger  for  a  national  spirit  thus  com- 
posed is  the  humdrum,  the  plain  and  ugly,  the 
ignoble  :  in  a  word,  das  Gemeine,  die  Gemeinheit,  that 
curse  of  Germany,  against  which  Goethe  was  all  his 
life  fighting.  The  excellence  of  a  national  spirit  thus 
composed  is  freedom  from  whim,  flightiness,  perverse- 
ness ;  patient  fidelity  to  Nature, — in  a  word,  science, 
— leading  it  at  last,  though  slowly,  and  not  by  the 
most  brilliant  road,  out  of  the  bondage  of  the  hum- 
drum and  common,  into  the  better  life.  The  uni- 
versal dead-level  of  plainness  and  homeliness,  the 
lack  of  all  beauty  and  distinction  in  form  and  feature, 
the  slowness  and  clumsiness  of  the  language,  the 
eternal  beer,  sausages,  and  bad  tobacco,  the  blank 
commonness  everywhere,  pressing  at  last  like  a 
weight  on  the  spirits  of  the  traveller  in  Northern 
Germany,  and  making  him  impatient  to  be  gone, — 
this  is  the  weak  side ;  the  industry,  the  well-doing, 
the  patient  steady  elaboration  of  things,  the  idea  of 
science  governing  all  departments  of  human  activity, 
—this  is  the  strong  side  ;  and  through  this  side  of 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  75 

her  genius,  Germany  has  already  obtained  excellent 
results,  and  is  destined,  we  may  depend  upon  it,  how- 
ever her  pedantry,  her  slowness,  her  fumbling,  her 
ineffectiveness,  her  bad  government,  may  at  times 
make  us  cry  out,  to  an  immense  development.1 

For  dulness,  the  creeping  Saxons, — says  an  old  Irish 
poem,  assigning  the  characteristics  for  which  different 
nations  are  celebrated  : — 

For  acuteness  and  valour,  the  Greeks, 

For  excessive  pride,  the  Romans, 

For  dulness,  the  creeping  Saxons  ; 

For  beauty  and  amorousness,  the  Gacdhils. 

We  have  seen  in  what  sense,  and  with  what  explana- 
tion, this  characterisation  of  the  German  may  be 
allowed  to  stand ;  now  let  us  come  to  the  beautiful 
and  amorous  Gaedhil.  Or  rather,  let  us  find  a  defini- 
tion which  may  suit  both  branches  of  the  Celtic 
family,  the  Cymri  as  well  as  the  Gael.  It  is  clear 
that  special  circumstances  may  have  developed  some 
one  side  in  the  national  character  of  Cymri  or  Gael, 
Welshman  or  Irishman,  so  that  the  observer's  notice 
shall  be  readily  caught  by  this  side,  and  yet  it  may 
be  impossible  to  adopt  it  as  characteristic  of  the 
Celtic  nature  generally.  For  instance,  in  his  beau- 
tiful essay  on  the  poetry  of  the  Celtic  races,  M. 
Renan,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  Bretons  and  the 
Welsh,  is  struck  with  the  timidity,  the  shyness,  the 
delicacy  of  the  Celtic  nature,  its  preference  for  a  re- 
tired life,  its  embarrassment  at  having  to  deal  with 

1  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  above  was  written  before 
the  recent  war  between  Prussia  and  Austria. 


76  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

the  great  world.  He  talks  of  the  douce  petite  race 
naturellement  chrttienne,  his  race  jiere  et  timide,  a 
TexUrieur  gauche  et  embarrasse'e.  But  it  is  evident 
that  this  description,  however  well  it  may  do  for  the 
Cymri,  will  never  do  for  the  Gael,  never  do  for  the 
typical  Irishman  of  Donnybrook  fair.  Again,  M. 
Renan's  infinie  dSlicatesse  de  sentiment  qui  caractirise  la 
race  Celtique,  how  little  that  accords  with  the  popular 
conception  of  an  Irishman  who  wants  to  borrow 
money  !  Sentiment  is,  however,  the  word  which 
marks  where  the  Celtic  races  really  touch  and  are 
one  ;  sentimental,  if  the  Celtic  nature  is  to  be  charac- 
terised by  a  single  term,  is  the  best  term  to  take. 
An  organisation  quick  to  feel  impressions,  and  feeling 
them  very  strongly ;  a  lively  personality  therefore, 
keenly  sensitive  to  joy  and  to  sorrow ;  this  is  the 
main  point.  If  the  downs  of  life  too  much  outnumber 
the  ups,  this  temperament,  just  because  it  is  so 
quickly  and  nearly  conscious  of  all  impressions,  may 
no  doubt  be  seen  shy  and  wounded  ;  it  may  be  seen 
in  wistful  regret,  it  may  be  seen  in  passionate,  pene- 
trating melancholy;  but  its  essence  is  to  aspire 
ardently  after  life,  light,  and  emotion,  to  be  expan- 
sive, adventurous,  and  gay.  Our  word  gay,  it  is  said, 
is  itself  Celtic.  It  is  not  from  gaudium,  but  from  the 
Celtic  gair,  to  laugh  ; l  and  the  impressionable  Celt, 

1  The  etymology  is  Monsieur  Henri  Martin's,  but  Lord 
Strangford  says  : — "Whatever  gai  may  be,  it  is  assuredly  not 
Celtic.  Is  there  any  authority  for  this  word  gair,  to  laugh,  or 
rather  '  laughter, '  beyond  O'Reilly?  O'Reilly  is  no  authority 
at  all  except  in  so  far  as  tested  and  passed  by  the  new  school.  It 
is  hard  to  give  up    gavisus.      But  Diez,  chief  authority  in 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  77 

soon  up  and  soon  down,  is  the  more  down  because  it 
is  so  his  nature  to  he  up — to  be  sociable,  hospitable, 
eloquent,  admired,  figuring  away  brilliantly.  He 
loves  bright  colours,  he  easily  becomes  audacious, 
overcrowing,  full  of  fanfaronade.  The  German, 
say  the  physiologists,  has  the  larger  volume  of  in- 
testines (and  who  that  has  ever  seen  a  German  at  a 
table-d'hote  will  not  readily  believe  this  1),  the  French- 
man has  the  more  developed  organs  of  respiration. 
That  is  just  the  expansive,  eager  Celtic  nature ;  the 
head  in  the  air,  snuffing  and  snorting ;  a  proud  look 
and  a  high  stomach,  as  the  Psalmist  says,  but  without 
any  such  settled  savage  temper  as  the  Psalmist  seems 
to  impute  by  those  words.  For  good  and  for  bad,  the 
Celtic  genius  is  more  airy  and  unsubstantial,  goes  less 
near  the  ground,  than  the  German.  The  Celt  is  often 
called  sensual ;  but  it  is  not  so  much  the  vulgar  satis- 
factions of  sense  that  attract  him  as  emotion  and 
excitement ;  he  is  truly,  as  I  began  by  saying,  senti- 
mental. 

Sentimental, — always  ready  to  react  against  the  des- 
potism of  fact ;  that  is  the  description  a  great  friend l 
of  the  Celt  gives  of  him ;  and  it  is  not  a  bad  descrip- 
tion of  the  sentimental  temperament ;  it  lets  us  into 
the  secret  of  its  dangers  and  of  its  habitual  want  of 
success.  Balance,  measure,  and  patience,  these  are 
the  eternal  conditions,  even  supposing  the  happiest 

Romanic  matters,  is  content  to  accept  Muratori's  reference  to  an 
old   High-German   gdhi,   modern  jcihe,   sharp,   quick,   sudden, 
brisk,  and  so  to  the  sense  of  lively,  animated,  high  in  spirits. " 
1  Monsieur  Henri  Martin,  whose  chapters  on  the  Celts,  in 
his  Hidoire  de  France,  are  full  of  information  and  interest. 


78  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

temperament   to   start  with,   of  high   success;   and 
balance,  measure,  and  patience  are  just  what  the  Celt 
has  never  had.     Even  in  the  world  of  spiritual  crea- 
tion, he  has  never,  in  spite  of  his  admirable  gifts  of 
quick  perception  and  warm  emotion,  succeeded  per- 
fectly, because  he  never  has  had  steadiness,  patience, 
sanity  enough  to  comply  with  the  conditions  under 
which  alone  can  expression  be  perfectly  given  to  the 
finest  perceptions  and  emotions.     The  Greek  has  the 
same  perceptive,  emotional  temperament  as  the  Celt ; 
but  he  adds  to  this  temperament  the  sense  of  measure; 
hence  his  admirable  success  in  the  plastic  arts,  in 
which  the  Celtic  genius,  with  its  chafing  against  the 
despotism  of  fact,  its  perpetual  straining  after  mere 
emotion,  has  accomplished  nothing.     In  the  compara- 
tively petty  art  of  ornamentation,  in  rings,  brooches, 
crosiers,  relic-cases,  and  so  on,  he  has  done  just  enough 
to  show  his  delicacy  of  taste,  his  happy  temperament ; 
but  the  grand  difficulties  of  painting  and  sculpture, 
the  prolonged  dealings  of  spirit  with  matter,  he  has 
never  had  patience  for.     Take  the  more  spiritual  arts 
of  music  and  poetry.     All  that  emotion  alone  can  do 
in  music  the  Celt  has  done ;  the  very  soul  of  emotion 
breathes  in  the  Scotch  and  Irish  airs ;  but  with  all 
this  power  of  musical  feeling,  what  has  the  Celt,  so 
eager  for  emotion  that  he  has  not  patience  for  science, 
effected  in  music,  to  be  compared  with  what  the  less 
emotional  German,  steadily  developing  his  musical 
feeling  with  the  science  of  a  Sebastian  Bach  or  a 
Beethoven,  has  effected?     In  poetry,  again, — poetry 
which  the  Celt  has  so  passionately,  so  nobly  loved ; 


CELTIC  LITERATUKE.  79 

poetry  where  emotion  counts  for  so  much,  but  where 
reason,  too,  reason,  measure,  sanity,  also  count  for  so 
much, — the  Celt  has  shown  genius,  indeed,  splendid 
genius ;  but  even  here  his  faults  have  clung  to  him, 
and  hindered  him  from  producing  great  works,  such 
as  other  nations  with  a  genius  for  poetry,— the  Greeks, 
say,  or  the  Italians, — have  produced.  The  Celt  has 
not  produced  great  poetical  works,  he  has  only  pro- 
duced poetry  with  an  air  of  greatness  investing  it 
all,  and  sometimes  giving,  moreover,  to  short  pieces, 
or  to  passages,  lines,  and  snatches  of  long  pieces, 
singular  beauty  and  power.  And  yet  he  loved  poetry 
so  much  that  he  grudged  no  pains  to  it ;  but  the  true 
art,  the  architectonic^  which  shapes  great  works,  such 
as  the  Agamemnon  or  the  Divine  Comedy,  comes  only 
after  a  steady,  deep-searching  survey,  a  firm  concep- 
tion of  the  facts  of  human  life,  which  the  Celt  has 
not  patience  for.  So  he  runs  off  into  technic,  where 
he  employs  the  utmost  elaboration,  and  attains  as- 
tonishing skill ;  but  in  the  contents  of  his  poetry  you 
have  only  so  much  interpretation  of  the  world  as  the 
first  dash  of  a  quick,  strong  perception,  and  then  sen- 
timent, infinite  sentiment,  can  bring  you.  Here,  too, 
his  want  of  sanity  and  steadfastness  has  kept  the  Celt 
back  from  the  highest  success. 

If  his  rebellion  against  fact  has  thus  lamed  the 
Celt  even  in  spiritual  work,  how  much  more  must  it 
have  lamed  him  in  the  world  of  business  and  politics  ! 
The  skilful  and  resolute  appliance  of  means  to  ends 
which  is  needed  both  to  make  progress  in  material 
civilisation,  and  also  to  form  powerful  states,  is  just 


80  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

what  the  Celt  has  least  turn  for.     He  is  sensual,  as  I 
have  said,  or  at  least  sensuous ;  loves  bright  colours, 
company,  and  pleasure ;  and  here  he  is  like  the  Greek 
and  Latin  races ;  but  compare  the  talent  the  Greek 
and  Latin  (or  Latinised)  races  have  shown  for  gratify- 
ing their  senses,  for  procuring  an  outward  life,  rich, 
luxurious,  splendid,  with  the  Celt's  failure  to  reach 
any  material  civilisation  sound  and  satisfying,  and 
not  out  at  elbows,  poor,  slovenly,  and  half-barbarous. 
The  sensuousness  of  the  Greek  made  Sybaris   and 
Corinth,  the  sensuousness  of  the  Latin  made  Rome 
and  Baise,  the  sensuousness  of  the  Latinised  French- 
man  makes   Paris  ;    the   sensuousness   of    the   Celt 
proper  has  made  Ireland.     Even  in  his  ideal  heroic 
times,  his  gay  and  sensuous  nature  cannot  carry  him, 
in  the  appliances  of  his  favourite  life  of  sociability 
and  pleasure,  beyond  the  gross  and  creeping  Saxon 
whom  he  despises ;  the  regent  Breas,  we  are  told  in 
the  Battle  of  Moytura  of  the  Fomorians,  became  un- 
popular because  "  the  knives  of  his  people  were  not 
greased  at  his  table,  nor  did  their  breath  smell  of  ale 
at  the  banquet."     In  its  grossness  and  barbarousness 
is  not  that  Saxon,  as  Saxon  as  it  can  be  1  just  what 
the  Latinised  Norman,  sensuous  and  sociable  like  the 
Celt,  but  with  the  talent  to  make  this  bent  of  his 
serve  to  a  practical  embellishment  of  his  mode  of 
living,  found  so  disgusting  in  the  Saxon. 

And  as  in  material  civilisation  he  has  been  in- 
effectual, so  has  the  Celt  been  ineffectual  in  politics. 
This  colossal,  impetuous,  adventurous  wanderer,  the 
Titan  of  the  early  world,  who  in  primitive  times  fills 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  81 

so  large  a  place  on  earth's  scene,  dwindles  and  dwindles 
as  history  goes  on,  and  at  last  is  shrunk  to  what  we 
now  see  him.  For  ages  and  ages  the  world  has  been 
constantly  slipping,  ever  more  and  more,  out  of  the 
Celt's  grasp.  "  They  went  forth  to  the  war,"  Ossian 
says  most  truly,  "but  they  always  fell." 

And  yet,  if  one  sets  about  constituting  an  ideal 
genius,  what  a  great  deal  of  the  Celt  does  one  find 
oneself  drawn  to  put  into  it !  Of  an  ideal  genius 
one  does  not  want  the  elements,  any  of  them,  to  be 
in  a  state  of  weakness ;  on  the  contrary,  one  wants 
all  of  them  to  be  in  the  highest  state  of  power  ;  but 
with  a  law  of  measure,  of  harmony,  presiding  over 
the  whole.  So  the  sensibility  of  the  Celt,  if  every- 
thing else  were  not  sacrificed  to  it,  is  a  beautiful  and 
admirable  force.  For  sensibility,  the  power  of  quick 
and  strong  perception  and  emotion,  is  one  of  the 
very  prime  constituents  of  genius,  perhaps  its  most 
positive  constituent ;  it  is  to  the  soul  what  good 
senses  are  to  the  body,  the  grand  natural  condition 
of  successful  activity.  Sensibility  gives  genius  its 
materials  ;  one  cannot  have  too  much  of  it,  if  one  can 
but  keep  its  master  and  not  be  its  slave.  Do  not  let 
us  wish  that  the  Celt  had  had  less  sensibility,  but 
that  he  had  been  more  master  of  it.  Even  as  it  is, 
if  his  sensibility  has  been  a  source  of  weakness  to 
him,  it  has  been  a  source  of  power  too,  and  a  source 
of  happiness.  Some  people  have  found  in  the  Celtic 
nature  and  its  sensibility  the  main  root  out  of  which 
chivalry  and  romance  and  the  glorification  of  a  femi- 
nine  ideal   spring ;   this   is   a   great   question,   with 

VOL.   II.  G 


82  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

which  I  cannot  deal  here.  Let  me  notice  in  passing, 
however,  that  there  is,  in  truth,  a  Celtic  air  about  the 
extravagance  of  chivalry,  its  reaction  against  the 
despotism  of  fact,  its  straining  human  nature  further 
than  it  will  stand.  But  putting  all  this  question  of 
chivalry  and  its  origin  on  one  side,  no  doubt  the 
sensibility  of  the  Celtic  nature,  its  nervous  exaltation, 
have  something  feminine  in  them,  and  the  Celt  is 
thus  peculiarly  disposed  to  feel  the  spell  of  the  femi- 
nine idiosyncrasy ;  he  has  an  affinity  to  it ;  he  is  not 
far  from  its  secret.  Again,  his  sensibility  gives  him 
a  peculiarly  near  and  intimate  feeling  of  nature  and 
the  life  of  nature  ;  here,  too,  he  seems  in  a  special 
Avay  attracted  by  the  secret  before  him,  the  secret  of 
natural  beauty  and  natural  magic,  and  to  be  close  to 
it,  to  half-divine  it.  In  the  productions  of  the  Celtic 
genius,  nothing,  perhaps,  is  so  interesting  as  the  evi- 
dences of  this  power  :  I  shall  have  occasion  to  give 
specimens  of  them  by  and  by.  The  same  sensibility 
made  the  Celts  full  of  reverence  and  enthusiasm  for 
genius,  learning,  and  the  things  of  the  mind ;  to  be  a 
bard,  freed  a  man, — that  is  a  characteristic  stroke  of 
this  generous  and  ennobling  ardour  of  theirs,  which 
no  race  has  ever  shown  more  strongly.  Even  the 
extravagance  and  exaggeration  of  the  sentimental 
Celtic  nature  has  often  something  romantic  and  attrac- 
tive about  it,  something  which  has  a  sort  of  smack  of 
misdirected  good.  The  Celt,  undisciplinable,  anarchi- 
cal, and  turbulent  by  nature,  but  out  of  affection 
and  admiration  giving  himself  body  and  soul  to  some 
leader,  that  is  not  a  promising  political  temperament. 


CELTIC  LITEEATUKE.  83 

it  is  just  the  opposite  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  tempera- 
ment, disciplinable  and  steadily  obedient  within  cer- 
tain limits,  but  retaining  an  inalienable  part  of  freedom 
and  self-dependence;  but  it  is  a  temperament  for 
which  one  has  a  kind  of  sympathy  notwithstanding. 
And  very  often,  for  the  gay  defiant  reaction  against 
fact  of  the  lively  Celtic  nature  one  has  more  than 
sympathy  ;  one  feels,  in  spite  of  the  extravagance,  in 
spite  of  good  sense  disapproving,  magnetised  and  ex- 
hilarated by  it.  The  Gauls  had  a  rule  inflicting  a 
fine  on  every  warrior  who,  when  he  appeared  on 
parade,  was  found  to  stick  out  too  much  in  front, — to 
be  corpulent,  in  short.  Such  a  rule  is  surely  the 
maddest  article  of  war  ever  framed,  and  to  people  to 
whom  nature  has  assigned  a  large  volume  of  intes- 
tines, must  appear,  no  doubt,  horrible  ;  but  yet  has 
it  not  an  audacious,  sparkling,  immaterial  manner 
with  it,  which  lifts  one  out  of  routine,  and  sets  one's 
spirits  in  a  glow  1 

All  tendencies  of  human  nature  are  in  themselves 
vital  and  profitable  ;  when  they  are  blamed,  they  are 
only  to  be  blamed  relatively,  not  absolutely.  This 
holds  true  of  the  Saxon's  phlegm  as  well  as  of  the 
Celt's  sentiment.  Out  of  the  steady  humdrum  habit 
of  the  creeping  Saxon,  as  the  Celt  calls  him, — out  of 
his  way  of  going  near  the  ground, — has  come,  no 
doubt,  Philistinism,  that  plant  of  essentially  Germanic 
growth,  flourishing  with  its  genuine  marks  only  in  the 
German  fatherland,  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies, 
and  the  United  States  of  America ;  but  what  a  soul 
of  goodness  there  is  in  Philistinism  itself !  and  this 


84  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

soul  of  goodness  I,  who  am  often  supposed  to  be 
Philistinism's  mortal  enemy  merely  because  I  do  not 
wish  it  to  have  things  all  its  own  way,  cherish  as 
much  as  anybody.  This  steady-going  habit  leads  at 
last,  as  I  have  said,  up  to  science,  up  to  the  compre- 
hension and  interpretation  of  the  world.  With  us  in 
Great  Britain,  it  is  true,  it  does  not  seem  to  lead  so 
far  as  that;  it  is  in  Germany,  where  the  habit  is 
more  unmixed,  that  it  can  lead  to  science.  Here  with 
us  it  seems  at  a  certain  point  to  meet  with  a  conflict- 
ing force,  which  checks  it  and  prevents  its  pushing  on 
to  science ;  but  before  reaching  this  point  what  con- 
quests has  it  not  won  !  and  all  the  more,  perhaps,  for 
stopping  short  at  this  point,  for  spending  its  exertions 
within  a  bounded  field,  the  field  of  plain  sense,  of 
direct  practical  utility.  How  it  has  augmented  the 
comforts  and  conveniences  of  life  for  us  !  Doors  that 
open,  windows  that  shut,  locks  that  turn,  razors  that 
shave,  coats  that  wear,  watches  that  go,  and  a  thou- 
sand more  such  good  things,  are  the  invention  of  the 
Philistines. 

Here,  then,  if  commingling  there  is  in  our  race, 
are  two  very  unlike  elements  to  commingle ;  the 
steady-going  Saxon  temperament  and  the  sentimental 
Celtic  temperament.  But  before  we  go  on  to  try  and 
verify,  in  our  life  and  literature,  the  alleged  fact  of 
this  commingling,  we  have  yet  another  element  to 
take  into  account,  the  Norman  element.  The  critic 
in  the  Saturday  Review,  whom  I  have  already  quoted, 
says  that  in  looking  for  traces  of  Normanism  in  our 
national  genius,  as  in  looking  for  traces  of  Celtism  in 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  85 

it,  we  do  but  lose  our  labour ;  he  says,  indeed,  that 
there  went  to  the  original  making  of  our  nation  a 
very  great  deal  more  of  a  Norman  element  than  of 
a  Celtic  element,  but  he  asserts  that  both  elements 
have  now  so  completely  disappeared,  that  it  is  vain 
to  look  for  any  trace  of  either  of  them  in  the  modern 
Englishman.  But  this  sort  of  assertion  I  do  not  like 
to  admit  without  trying  it  a  little.  I  want,  therefore, 
to  get  some  plain  notion  of  the  Norman  habit  and 
genius,  as  I  have  sought  to  get  some  plain  notion  of 
the  Saxon  and  Celtic.  Some  people  will  say  that  the 
Normans  are  Teutonic,  and  that  therefore  the  dis- 
tinguishing characters  of  the  German  genius  must  be 
those  of  their  genius  also ;  but  the  matter  cannot  be 
settled  in  this  speedy  fashion.  No  doubt  the  basis  of 
the  Norman  race  is  Teutonic ;  but  the  governing  point 
in  the  history  of  the  Norman  race, — so  far,  at  least, 
as  we  English  have  to  do  with  it, — is  not  its  Teutonic 
origin,  but  its  Latin  civilisation.  The  French  people 
have,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  an  undoubtedly 
Celtic  basis,  yet  so  decisive  in  its  effect  upon  a  nation's 
habit  and  character  can  be  the  contact  with  a  stronger 
civilisation,  that  Gaul,  without  changing  the  basis  of 
her  blood,  became,  for  all  practical  intents  and  pur- 
poses, a  Latin  country,  France  and  not  Ireland,  through 
the  Eoman  conquest.  Latinism  conquered  Celtism  in 
her,  as  it  also  conquered  the  Germanism  imported  by 
the  Frankish  and  other  invasions;  Celtism  is,  how- 
ever, I  need  not  say,  everywhere  manifest  still  in  the 
French  nation ;  even  Germanism  is  distinctly  trace- 
able in  it,  as  any  one  who  attentively  compares  the 


86  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

French  with  other  Latin  races  will  see.  No  one  can 
look  carefully  at  the  French  troops  in  Eome,  amongst 
the  Italian  population,  and  not  perceive  this  trace  of 
Germanism ;  I  do  not  mean  in  the  Alsatian  soldiers 
only,  hut  in  the  soldiers  of  genuine  France.  But  the 
governing  character  of  France,  as  a  power  in  the 
world,  is  Latin;  such  was  the  force  of  Greek  and 
Roman  civilisation  upon  a  race  whose  whole  mass 
remained  Celtic,  and  where  the  Celtic  language  still 
lingered  on,  they  say,  among  the  common  people,  for 
some  five  or  six  centuries  after  the  Roman  conquest. 
But  the  Normans  in  Neustria  lost  their  old  Teutonic 
language  in  a  wonderfully  short  time ;  when  they 
conquered  England  they  were  already  Latinised;  with 
them  were  a  number  of  Frenchmen  by  race,  men  from 
Anjou  and  Poitou,  so  they  brought  into  England  more, 
non-Teutonic  blood,  besides  what  they  had  themselves 
got  by  intermarriage,  than  is  commonly  supposed ;  the 
great  point,  however,  is,  that  by  civilisation  this  vigorous 
race,  when  it  took  possession  of  England,  was  Latin. 

These  Normans,  who  in  Neustria  had  lost  their 
old  Teutonic  tongue  so  rapidly,  kept  in  England  their 
new  Latin  tongue  for  some  three  centuries.  It  was 
Edward  the  Third's  reign  before  English  came  to  be 
used  in  law -pleadings  and  spoken  at  court.  Why 
this  difference1?  Both  in  Neustria  and  in  England 
the  Normans  were  a  handful;  but  in  Neustria,  as 
Teutons,  they  were  in  contact  with  a  more  advanced 
civilisation  than  their  own ;  in  England,  as  Latins, 
with  a  less  advanced.  The  Latinised  Normans  in 
England  had  the  sense  for  fact,  which  the  Celts  had 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  87 

not;  and  the  love  of  strenuousness,  clearness,  and 
rapidity,  the  high  Latin  spirit,  which  the  Saxons  had 
not.  They  hated  the  slowness  and  didness  of  the 
creeping  Saxon ;  it  offended  their  clear,  strenuous 
talent  for  affairs,  as  it  offended  the  Celt's  quick  and 
delicate  perception.  The  Normans  had  the  Roman 
talent  for  affairs,  the  Eoman  decisiveness  in  emer- 
gencies. They  have  been  called  prosaic,  but  this  is 
not  a  right  word  for  them ;  they  were  neither  senti- 
mental, nor,  strictly  speaking,  poetical.  They  had 
more  sense  for  rhetoric  than  for  poetry,  like  the 
Romans ;  but,  like  the  Romans,  they  had  too  high  a 
spirit  not  to  like  a  noble  intellectual  stimulus  of  some 
kind,  and  thus  they  were  carried  out  of  the  region  of 
the  merely  prosaic.  Their  foible, — the  bad  excess  of 
their  characterising  quality  of  strenuousness, — was  not 
a  prosaic  flatness,  it  was  hardness  and  insolence. 

I  have  been  obliged  to  fetch  a  very  wide  circuit, 
but  at  last  I  have  got  what  I  went  to  seek.  I  have 
got  a  rough,  but,  I  hope,  clear  notion  of  these  three 
forces,  the  Germanic  genius,  the  Celtic  genius,  the 
Norman  genius.  The  Germanic  genius  has  steadi- 
ness as  its  main  basis,  with  commonness  and  humdrum 
for  its  defect,  fidelity  to  nature  for  its  excellence.  The 
Celtic  genius,  sentiment  as  its  main  basis,  with  love  of 
beauty,  charm,  and  spirituality  for  its  excellence,  in- 
effectualness  and  self-will  for  its  defect.  The  Norman 
genius,  talent  for  affairs  as  its  main  basis,  with  strenu- 
ousness and  clear  rapidity  for  its  excellence,  hardness 
and  insolence  for  its  defect.  And  now  to  try  and 
trace  these  in  the  composite  English  genius. 


88  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 


V. 

To  begin  with  what  is  more  external.  If  we  are 
so  wholly  Anglo-Saxon  and  Germanic  as  people  say, 
how  comes  it  that  the  habits  and  gait  of  the  German 
language  are  so  exceedingly  unlike  ours  ?  Why  while 
the  Times  talks  in  this  fashion  :  "  At  noon  a  long  line 
of  carriages  extended  from  Pall  Mall  to  the  Peers' 
entrance  of  the  Palace  of  Westminster,"  does  the 
Cologne  Gazette  talk  in  this  other  fashion  :  "  Nachdem 
die  Vorbereitungen  zu  dem  auf  dem  Giirzenich-Saale 
zu  Ehren  der  Abgeordneten  Statt  finden  sollenden 
Bankette  bereits  vollstandig  getroffen  worden  waren, 
fand  heute  vormittag  auf  polizeiliche  Anordnung  die 
Schliessung  sammtlicher  Zugange  zum  Giirzenich 
Statt?"1  Surely  the  mental  habit  of  people  who 
express  their  thoughts  in  so  very  different  a  manner, 

1  The  above  is  really  a  sentence  taken  from  the  Cologne 
Gazette.  Lord  Strangford's  comment  here  is  as  follows  : — 
"  Modern  Germanism,  in  a  general  estimate  of  Germanism, 
should  not  be  taken,  absolutely  and  necessarily,  as  the  constant, 
whereof  we  are  the  variant.  The  Low  Dutch  of  Holland,  any- 
how, are  indisputably  as  genuine  Dutch  as  the  High  Dutch  of 
Germany  Proper.  But  do  they  write  sentences  like  this  one, — 
informe,  ingens,  cui  lumen  adcmptum  ?  If  not,  the  question 
must  be  asked,  not  how  we  have  come  to  deviate,  but  how  the 
Germans  have  come  to  deviate.  Our  modern  English  prose  in 
plain  matters  is  often  all  just  the  same  as  the  prose  of  King 
Alfred  and  the  Chronicle.  Ohthere's  North  Sea  Voyage  and 
Wulfstan's  Baltic  Voyage  is  the  sort  of  thing  which  is  sent  in 
every  day,  one  may  say,  to  the  Geographical  or  Ethnological 
Society,  in  the  whole  style  and  turn  of  phrase  and  thought." 

The  mass  of  a  stock  must  supply  our  data  for  judging  the 
stock.     But  see,  moreover,  what  I  have  said  at  p.  91. 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  89 

the  one  rapid,  the  other  slow,  the  one  plain,  the  other 
embarrassed,  the  one  trailing,  the  other  striding,  can- 
not be  essentially  the  same.  The  English  language, 
strange  compound  as  it  is,  with  its  want  of  inflections, 
and  with  all  the  difficulties  which  this  want  of  inflec- 
tions brings  upon  it,  has  yet  made  itself  capable  of 
being,  in  good  hands,  a  business  instrument  as  ready, 
direct,  and  clear,  as  French  or  Latin.  Again  :  per- 
haps no  nation,  after  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  has  so 
clearly  felt  in  what  true  rhetoric,  rhetoric  of  the  best 
kind,  consists,  and  reached  so  high  a  pitch  of  excel- 
lence in  this,  as  the  English.  Our  sense  for  rhetoric 
has  in  some  ways  done  harm  to  us  in  our  cultivation 
of  literature,  harm  to  us,  still  more,  in  our  cultivation 
of  science ;  but  in  the  true  sphere  of  rhetoric,  in 
public  speaking,  this  sense  has  given  us  orators  whom 
I  do  think  we  may,  without  fear  of  being  contradicted 
and  accused  of  blind  national  vanity,  assert  to  have 
inherited  the  great  Greek  and  Roman  oratorical  tradi- 
tion more  than  the  orators  of  any  other  country. 
Strafford,  Bolingbroke,  the  two  Pitts,  Fox, — to  cite 
no  other  names, — I  imagine  few  will  dispute  that 
these  call  up  the  notion  of  an  oratory,  in  kind,  in  ex- 
tent, in  power,  coming  nearer  than  any  other  body  of 
modern  oratory  to  the  oratory  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
And  the  affinity  of  spirit  in  our  best  public  life  and 
greatest  public  men  to  those  of  Rome,  has  often  struck 
observers,  foreign  as  well  as  English.  Now,  not  only 
have  the  Germans  shown  no  eminent  aptitude  for 
rhetoric  such  as  the  English  have  shown, — that  was 
not  to  be  expected,  since  our  public  life  has  done  so 


90  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

much  to  develop  an  aptitude  of  this  kind,  and  the 
public  life  of  the  Germans  has  done  so  little, — but 
they  seem  in  a  singular  degree  devoid  of  any  aptitude 
at  all  for  rhetoric.  Take  a  speech  from  the  throne  in 
Prussia,  and  compare  it  with  a  speech  from  the  throne 
in  England.  Assuredly  it  is  not  in  speeches  from  the 
throne  that  English  rhetoric  or  any  rhetoric  shows 
its  best  side ; — they  are  often  cavilled  at,  often  justly 
cavilled  at ; — no  wonder,  for  this  form  of  composition 
is  beset  with  very  trying  difficulties.  But  what  is  to 
be  remarked  is  this ; — a  speech  from  the  throne  falls 
essentially  within  the  sphere  of  rhetoric,  it  is  one's 
sense  of  rhetoric  which  has  to  fix  its  tone  and  style, 
so  as  to  keep  a  certain  note  always  sounding  in  it ;  in 
an  English  speech  from  the  throne,  whatever  its  faults, 
this  rhetorical  note  is  always  struck  and  kept  to  ;  in 
a  Prussian  speech  from  the  throne,  never.  An  English 
speech  from  the  throne  is  rhetoric  ;  a  Prussian  speech 
is  half  talk, — heavy  talk, — and  half  effusion.  This  is 
one  instance,  it  may  be  said  ;  true,  but  in  one  instance 
of  this  kind  the  presence  or  the  absence  of  an  aptitude 
for  rhetoric  is  decisively  shown.  Well,  then,  why 
am  I  not  to  say  that  we  English  get  our  rhetorical 
sense  from  the  Norman  element  in  us, — our  turn 
for  this  strenuous,  direct,  high-spirited  talent  of 
oratory,  from  the  influence  of  the  strenuous,  direct, 
high-spirited  Normans?  Modes  of  life,  institutions, 
government,  and  other  such  causes,  are  sufficient, 
I  shall  be  told,  to  account  for  English  oratory. 
Modes  of  life,  institutions,  government,  climate, 
and  so  forth,  —  let   me   say   it  once   for  all,  —  will 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  91 

further  or  hinder  the  development  of  an  aptitude, 
but  they  will  not  by  themselves  create  the  aptitude 
or  explain  it.  On  the  other  hand,  a  people's  habit  and 
complexion  of  nature  go  far  to  determine  its  modes 
of  life,  institutions,  and  government,  and  even  to  pre- 
scribe the  limits  within  which  the  influences  of  climate 
shall  tell  upon  it. 

However,  it  is  not  my  intention,  in  these  remarks, 
to  lay  it  down  for  certain  that  this  or  that  part  of 
our  powers,  shortcomings,  and  behaviour,  is  due  to  a 
Celtic,  German,  or  Norman  element  in  us.  To  estab- 
lish this  I  should  need  much  wider  limits,  and  a  know- 
ledge, too,  far  beyond  what  I  possess ;  all  I  purpose 
is  to  point  out  certain  correspondences,  not  yet,  per- 
haps, sufficiently  observed  and  attended  to,  which 
seem  to  lead  towards  certain  conclusions.  The  fol- 
lowing up  the  inquiry  till  full  proof  is  reached, — or 
perhaps,  full  disproof, — is  what  I  want  to  suggest  to 
more  competent  persons.  Premising  this,  I  now  go 
on  to  a  second  matter,  somewhat  more  delicate  and 
inward  than  that  with  which  I  began.  Every  one 
knows  how  well  the  Greek  and  Latin  races,  with  their 
direct  sense  for  the  visible,  palpable  world,  have  suc- 
ceeded in  the  plastic  arts.  The  sheer  German  races, 
too,  with  their  honest  love  of  fact,  and  their  steady 
pursuit  of  it, — their  fidelity  to  nature,  in  short, — 
have  attained  a  high  degree  of  success  in  these  arts  ; 
few  people  will  deny  that  Albert  Diirer  and  Eubens, 
for  example,  are  to  be  called  masters  in  painting,  and 
in  the  high  kind  of  painting.  The  Celtic  races,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  shown  a  singular  inaptitude  for  the 


92  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

plastic  arts ;  the  abstract,  severe  character  of  the 
Druidical  religion,  its  dealing  with  the  eye  of  the 
mind  rather  than  the  eye  of  the  body,  its  having  no 
elaborate  temples  and  beautiful  idols,  all  point  this 
way  from  the  first;  its  sentiment  cannot  satisfy  itself, 
cannot  even  find  a  resting-place  for  itself,  in  colour 
and  form ;  it  presses  on  to  the  impalpable,  the  ideal. 
The  forest  of  trees  and  the  forest  of  rocks,  not  hewn 
timber  and  carved  stones,  suit  its  aspirations  for 
something  not  to  be  bounded  or  expressed.  With 
this  tendency,  the  Celtic  races  have,  as  I  remarked 
before,  been  necessarily  almost  impotent  in  the  higher 
branches  of  the  plastic  arts.  Ireland,  that  has  pro- 
duced so  many  powerful  spirits,  has  produced  no 
great  sculptors  or  painters.  Cross  into  England. 
The  inaptitude  for  the  plastic  art  strikingly  dimin- 
ishes, as  soon  as  the  German,  not  the  Celtic  element, 
preponderates  in  the  race.  And  yet  in  England,  too, 
in  the  English  race,  there  is  something  which  seems 
to  prevent  our  reaching  real  mastership  in  the  plastic 
arts,  as  the  more  unmixed  German  races  have  reached 
it.  'Keynolds  and  Turner  are  painters  of  genius,  who 
can  doubt  if?  but  take  a  European  jury,  the  only 
competent  jury  in  these  cases,  and  see  if  you  can  get 
a  verdict  giving  them  the  rank  of  masters,  as  this  rank 
is  given  to  Raphael  and  Correggio,  or  to  Albert  Diirer 
and  Rubens.  And  observe  in  what  points  our  English 
pair  succeed,  and  in  what  they  fall  short.  They  fall 
short  in  architectonic^,  in  the  highest  power  of  compo- 
sition, by  which  painting  accomplishes  the  very  utter- 
most which  it  is  given  to  painting  to  accomplish  ;  the 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  93 

highest  sort  of  composition,  the  highest  application  of 
the  art  of  painting,  they  either  do  not  attempt,  or  they 
fail  in  it.  Their  defect,  therefore,  is  on  the  side  of 
art,  of  plastic  art.  And  they  succeed  in  magic,  in 
beauty,  in  grace,  in  expressing  almost  the  inexpress- 
ible :  here  is  the  charm  of  Eeynolds's  children  and 
Turner's  seas ;  the  impidse  to  express  the  inexpress- 
ible carries  Turner  so  far,  that  at  last  it  carries  him 
away,  and  even  long  before  he  is  quite  carried  away, 
even  in  works  that  are  justly  extolled,  one  can  see 
the  stamp-mark,  as  the  French  say,  of  insanity.  The 
excellence,  therefore,  the  success,  is  on  the  side  of 
spirit.  Does  not  this  look  as  if  a  Celtic  stream  met 
the  main  German  current  in  us,  and  gave  it  a  some- 
what different  course  from  that  which  it  takes  natu- 
rally? We  have  Germanism  enough  in  us,  enough 
patient  love  for  fact  and  matter,  to  be  led  to  attempt 
the  plastic  arts,  and  we  make  much  more  way  in  them 
than  the  pure  Celtic  races  make ;  but  at  a  certain 
point  our  Celtism  comes  in,  with  its  love  of  emotion, 
sentiment,  the  inexpressible,  and  gives  our  best  paint- 
ers a  bias.  And  the  point  at  which  it  comes  in  is 
just  that  critical  point  where  the  flowering  of  art  into 
its  perfection  commences;  we  have  plenty  of  painters 
who  never  reach  this  point  at  all,  but  remain  always 
mere  journeymen,  in  bondage  to  matter;  but  those 
who  do  reach  it,  instead  of  going  on  to  the  true  con- 
summation of  the  masters  in  painting,  are  a  little  over- 
balanced by  soul  and  feeling,  work  too  directly  for 
these,  and  so  do  not  get  out  of  their  art  all  that  may 
be  got  out  of  it. 


94  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

The  same  modification  of  our  Germanism  by 
another  force  which  seems  Celtic,  is  visible  in  our 
religion.  Here,  too,  we  may  trace  a  gradation  be- 
tween Celt,  Englishman,  and  German,  the  difference 
which  distinguishes  Englishman  from  German  appear- 
ing attributable  to  a  Celtic  element  in  us.  Germany 
is  the  land  of  exegesis,  England  is  the  land  of  Puri- 
tanism. The  religion  of  Wales  is  more  emotional 
and  sentimental  than  English  Puritanism;  Roman- 
ism has  indeed  given  way  to  Calvinism  among  the 
Welsh, — the  one  superstition  has  supplanted  the  other, 
— but  the  Celtic  sentiment  which  made  the  Welsh 
such  devout  Catholics,  remains,  and  gives  unction  to 
their  Methodism ;  theirs  is  not  the  controversial, 
rationalistic,  intellectual  side  of  Protestantism,  but 
the  devout,  emotional,  religious  side.  Among  the 
Germans,  Protestantism  has  been  carried  on  into 
rationalism  and  science.  The  English  hold  a  middle 
place  between  the  Germans  and  the  Welsh;  their 
religion  has  the  exterior  forms  and  apparatus  of  a 
rationalism,  so  far  their  Germanic  nature  carries 
them ;  but  long  before  they  get  to  science,  their  feel- 
ing, their  Celtic  element  catches  them,  and  turns 
their  religion  all  towards  piety  and  unction.  So  Eng- 
lish Protestantism  has  the  outside  appearance  of  an 
intellectual  system,  and  the  inside  reality  of  an  emo- 
tional system :  this  gives  it  its  tenacity  and  force,  for 
what  is  held  with  the  ardent  attachment  of  feeling  is 
believed  to  have  at  the  same  time  the  scientific  proof 
of  reason.  The  English  Puritan,  therefore  (and 
Puritanism   is   the    characteristic    form  of    English 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  95 

Protestantism),  stands  between  the  German  Pro- 
testant and  the  Celtic  Methodist ;  his  real  affinity 
indeed,  at  present,  being  rather  with  his  Welsh 
kinsman,  if  kinsman  he  may  be  called,  than  with  his 
German. 

Sometimes  one  is  left  in  doubt  from  whence  the 
check  and  limit  to  Germanism  in  us  proceeds,  whether 
from  a  Celtic  source  or  from  a  Norman  source.  Of 
the  true  steady-going  German  nature  the  bane  is,  as 
I  remarked,  flat  commonness  ;  there  seems  no  end  to 
its  capacity  for  platitude  ;  it  has  neither  the  quick 
perception  of  the  Celt  to  save  it  from  platitude,  nor 
the  strenuousness  of  the  Norman  ;  it  is  only  raised 
gradually  out  of  it  by  science,  but  it  jogs  through 
almost  interminable  platitudes  first.  The  English 
nature  is  not  raised  to  science,  but  something  in  us, 
whether  Celtic  or  Norman,  seems  to  set  a  bound  to 
our  advance  in  platitude,  to  make  us  either  shy  of 
platitude  or  impatient  of  it.  I  open  an  English 
reading -book  for  children,  and  I  find  these  two 
characteristic  stories  in  it,  one  of  them  of  English 
growth,  the  other  of  German.  Take  the  English 
story  first : — 

"  A  little  boy  accompanied  his  elder  sister  while 
she  busied  herself  with  the  labours  of  the  farm,  ask- 
ing questions  at  every  step,  and  learning  the  lessons 
of  life  without  being  aware  of  it. 

"'Why,  dear  Jane,'  he  said,  'do  you  scatter 
good  grain  on  the  ground ;  would  it  not  be  better  to 
make  good  bread  of  it  than  to  throw  it  to  the  greedy 
chickens?' 


96  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

"  '  In  time,'  replied  Jane,  '  the  chickens  will  grow 
big,  and  each  of  them  will  fetch  money  at  the  market. 
One  must  think  on  the  end  to  he  attained  without 
counting  trouble,  and  learn  to  wait.' 

"  Perceiving  a  colt,  which  looked  eagerly  at  him, 
the  little  boy  cried  out :  '  Jane,  why  is  the  colt  not 
in  the  fields  with  the  labourers  helping  to  draw  the 
carts'?' 

"  '  The  colt  is  young,'  replied  Jane,  c  and  he  must 
lie  idle  till  he  gets  the  necessary  strength ;  one  must 
not  sacrifice  the  future  to  the  present.' " 

The  reader  will  say  that  is  most  mean  and  trivial 
stuff,  the  vulgar  English  nature  in  full  force ;  just 
such  food  as  the  Philistine  would  naturally  provide 
for  his  young.  He  will  say  he  can  see  the  boy  fed 
upon  it  growing  up  to  be  like  his  father,  to  be  all  for 
business,  to  despise  culture,  to  go  through  his  dull 
days,  and  to  die  without  having  ever  lived.  That 
may  be  so ;  but  now  take  the  German  story  (one  of 
Krummacher's),  and  see  the  difference  : — 

"  There  lived  at  the  court  of  King  Herod  a  rich 
man  who  was  the  king's  chamberlain.  He  clothed 
himself  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  fared  like  the 
king  himself. 

"  Once  a  friend  of  his  youth,  whom  he  had  not 
seen  for  many  years,  came  from  a  distant  land  to 
pay  him  a  visit.  Then  the  chamberlain  invited 
all  his  friends  and  made  a  feast  in  honour  of  the 
stranger. 

"  The  tables  were  covered  with  choice  food  placed 
on  dishes  of  gold  and  silver,  and  the  finest  wines  of 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  97 

all  kinds.  The  rich  man  sate  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  glad  to  do  the  honours  to  his  friend  who  was 
seated  at  his  right  hand.  So  they  ate  and  drank,  and 
were  merry. 

"Then  the  stranger  said  to  the  chamberlain  of 
King  Herod :  '  Kiches  and  splendour  like  thine 
are  nowhere  to  be  found  in  my  country'  And  he 
praised  his  greatness,  and  called  him  happy  above  all 
men  on  earth. 

"  Well,  the  rich  man  took  an  apple  from  a  golden 
vessel.  The  apple  was  large,  and  red,  and  pleasant  to 
the  eye.  Then  said  he :  '  Behold,  this  apple  hath 
rested  on  gold,  and  its  form  is  very  beautiful.'  And 
he  presented  it  to  the  stranger,  the  friend  of  his  youth. 
The  stranger  cut  the  apple  in  two  ;  and  behold,  in  the 
middle  of  it  there  was  a  worm  ! 

"  Then  the  stranger  looked  at  the  chamberlain ; 
and  the  chamberlain  bent  his  eyes  on  the  ground,  and 
sighed." 

There  it  ends.  Now  I  say,  one  sees  there  an 
abyss  of  platitude  open,  and  the  German  nature 
swimming  calmly  about  in  it,  which  seems  in  some 
way  or  other  to  have  its  entry  screened  off  for  the 
English  nature.  The  English  story  leads  with  a 
direct  issue  into  practical  life  :  a  narrow  and  dry 
practical  life,  certainly,  but  yet  enough  to  supply  a 
plain  motive  for  the  story ;  the  German  story  leads 
simply  nowhere  except  into  pathos.  Shall  we  say 
that  the  Norman  talent  for  affairs  saves  us  here,  or 
the  Celtic  perceptive  instinct  1  one  of  them  it  must 
be,  surely.     The  Norman  turn  seems  most  germane 

VOL.  IL  H 


98  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

to  the  matter  here  immediately  in  hand ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Celtic  turn,  or  some  degree  of  it,  some 
degree  of  its  quick  perceptive  instinct,  seems  neces- 
sary to  account  for  the  full  difference  between  the 
German  nature  and  ours.  Even  in  Germans  of 
genius  or  talent  the  want  of  quick  light  tact,  of 
instinctive  perception  of  the  impropriety  or  impossi- 
bility of  certain  things,  is  singularly  remarkable. 
Herr  Gervinus's  prodigious  discovery  about  Handel 
being  an  Englishman  and  Shakspeare  a  German,  the 
incredible  mare's-nest  Goethe  finds  in  looking  for  the 
origin  of  Byron's  Manfred, — these  are  things  from 
which  no  deliberate  care  or  reflection  can  save  a  man ; 
only  an  instinct  can  save  him  from  them,  an  instinct 
that  they  are  absurd ;  who  can  imagine  Charles  Lamb 
making  Herr  Gervinus's  blunder,  or  Shakspeare  mak- 
ing Goethe's  1  but  from  the  sheer  German  nature  this 
intuitive  tact  seems  something  so  alien,  that  even 
genius  fails  to  give  it.  And  yet  just  what  constitutes 
special  power  and  genius  in  a  man  seems  often  to  be 
his  blending  with  the  basis  of  his  national  tempera- 
ment, some  additional  gift  or  grace  not  proper  to 
that  temperament ;  Shakspeare's  greatness  is  thus  in 
his  blending  and  openness  and  flexibility  of  spirit, 
not  English,  with  the  English  basis;  Addison's,  in 
his  blending  a  moderation  and  delicacy,  not  English, 
with  the  English  basis ;  Burke's,  in  his  blending  a 
largeness  of  view  and  richness  of  thought,  not  Eng- 
lish, with  the  English  basis.  In  Germany  itself,  in 
the  same  way,  the  greatness  of  their  great  Frederic 
lies  in   his   blending  a  rapidity  and  clearness,  not 


CELTIC  LITEEATUEE.  99 

German,  with  the  German  basis;  the  greatness  of 
Goethe  in  his  blending  a  love  of  form,  nobility, 
and  dignity,  the  grand  style,  —  with  the  German 
basis.  But  the  quick,  sure,  instinctive  perception 
of  the  incongruous  and  absurd  not  even  genius  seems 
to  give  in  Germany;  at  least,  I  can  think  of  only 
one  German  of  genius,  Lessing  (for  Heine  was  a 
Jew,  and  the  Jewish  temperament  is  quite  another 
thing  from  the  German),  who  shows  it  in  an  eminent 
degree. 

If  we  attend  closely  to  the  terms  by  which 
foreigners  seek  to  hit  off  the  impression  which  we 
and  the  Germans  make  upon  them,  we  shall  detect 
in  these  terms  a  difference  which  makes,  I  think,  in 
favour  of  the  notion  I  am  propounding.  Nations  in 
hitting  off  one  another's  characters  are  apt,  we  all 
know,  to  seize  the  unflattering  side  rather  than  the 
flattering ;  the  mass  of  mankind  always  do  this,  and 
indeed  they  really  see  what  is  novel,  and  not  their 
own,  in  a  disfiguring  light.  Thus  we  ourselves,  for 
instance,  popularly  say  "  the  phlegmatic  Dutchman  " 
rather  than  "the  sensible  Dutchman,"  or  "the 
grimacing  Frenchman "  rather  than  "  the  polite 
Frenchman."  Therefore  neither  we  nor  the  Ger- 
mans should  exactly  accept  the  description  strangers 
give  of  us,  but  it  is  enough  for  my  purpose  that 
strangers,  in  characterising  us  with  a  certain  shade 
of  difference,  do  at  any  rate  make  it  clear  that  there 
appears  this  shade  of  difference,  though  the  character 
itself,  which  they  give  us  both,  may  be  a  caricature 
rather  than  a  faithful  picture  of  us.     Now  it  is  to  be 


100  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

noticed  that  those  sharp  observers,  the  French, — who 
have  a  double  turn  for  sharp  observation,  for  they 
have  both  the  quick  perception  of  the  Celt,  and  the 
Latin's  gift  for  coming  plump  upon  the  fact, — it  is 
to  be  noticed,  I  say,  that  the  French  put  a  curious 
distinction  in  their  popular,  depreciating,  we  will 
hope  inadequate,  way  of  hitting  off  us  and  the 
Germans.  While  they  talk  of  the  "  betise  alle- 
mande,"  they  talk  of  the  "gauchcrie  anglaise ;" 
while  they  talk  of  the  "Allemand  balourd"  they 
talk  of  the  "Anglais  empetrd ;"  while  they  call  the 
German  "niais,"  they  call  the  Englishman  "mttan- 
colique."  The  difference  between  the  epithets  balourd 
and  empetrd  exactly  gives  the  difference  in  character 
I  wish  to  seize ;  balourd  means  heavy  and  dull, 
empetri  means  hampered  and  embarrassed.  This 
points  to  a  certain  mixture  and  strife  of  elements 
in  the  Englishman;  to  the  clashing  of  a  Celtic 
quickness  of  perception  with  a  Germanic  instinct  for 
going  steadily  along  close  to  the  ground.  The  Celt, 
as  we  have  seen,  has  not  at  all,  in  spite  of  his  quick 
perception,  the  Latin  talent  for  dealing  with  the  fact, 
dexterously  managing  it,  and  making  himself  master 
of  it ;  Latin  or  Latinised  people  have  felt  contempt 
for  him  on  this  account,  have  treated  him  as  a  poor 
creature,  just  as  the  German,  who  arrives  at  fact  in 
a  different  way  from  the  Latins,  but  who  arrives 
at  it,  has  treated  him.  The  couplet  of  Chrestien  of 
Troyes  about  the  Welsh  : — 

.     .     .     Gallois  sont  tous,  par  nature, 
Plus  fous  que  betes  en  pature — 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  101 

is  well  known,  and  expresses  the  genuine  verdict  of 
the   Latin  mind  on  the  Celts.     But  the  perceptive 
instinct  of  the  Celt  feels  and  anticipates,  though  he 
has  that  in  him  which  cuts  him  off  from  command 
of  the  world  of  fact;  he  sees  what  is  wanting  to 
him  well  enough ;  his  mere  eye  is  not  less  sharp, 
nay,  it  is  sharper,  than  the  Latin's.     He  is  a  quick 
grenius,  checkmated  for  want  of  strenuousness  or  else 
patience.     The   German  has   not  the  Latin's  sharp 
precise  glance  on  the  world  of  fact,  and  dexterous 
behaviour  in  it ;  he  fumbles  with  it  much  and  long, 
but  his  honesty  and  patience  give  him  the  rule  of  it 
in  the  long  run, — a  surer  rule,  some  of  us  think, 
than  the  Latin  gets; — still,   his  behaviour  in  it  is 
not  quick  and  dexterous.     The  Englishman,   in  so 
far  as  he  is  German, — and  he  is  mainly  German, — 
proceeds  in  the  steady-going  German  fashion ;  if  he 
were  all  German  he  woidd  proceed   thus  for  ever 
without   self-consciousness    or   embarrassment;   but, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  Celtic,  he  has  snatches  of  quick 
instinct  which  often  make  him  feel  he  is  fumbling, 
show  him  visions  of  an  easier,  more  dexterous  be- 
haviour, disconcert  him  and  fill  him  with  misgiving. 
No  people,  therefore,  are  so  shy,  so  self-conscious,  so 
embarrassed  as  the  English,  because  two  natures  are 
mixed  in  them,  and  natures  which  pull  them  such 
different  ways.     The  Germanic  part,  indeed,  triumphs 
in  us,  we  are  a  Germanic  people ;  but  not  so  wholly 
as  to  exclude  hauntings  of  Celtism,  which  clash  with 
our  Germanism,  producing,  as  I  believe,  our  humour, 
neither  German  nor  Celtic,  and  so  affect  us  that  we 


102  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

strike  people  as  odd  and  singular,  not  to  be  referred 
to  any  known  type,  and  like  nothing  but  ourselves. 
"Nearly  every  Englishman,"  says  an  excellent  and 
by  no  means  unfriendly  observer,  George  Sand, 
"nearly  every  Englishman,  however  good-looking 
he  may  be,  has  always  something  singular  about 
him  which  easily  comes  to  seem  comic ; — a  sort  of 
typical  awkwardness  (gaucherie  typique)  in  his  looks 
or  appearance,  which  hardly  ever  wears  out."  I  say 
this  strangeness  is  accounted  for  by  the  English 
nature  being  mixed  as  we  have  seen,  while  the 
Latin  nature  is  all  of  a  piece,  and  so  is  the  German 
nature,  and  the  Celtic  nature. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  very  fast  when  the  matter 
with  which  one  has  to  deal,  besides  being  new  and 
little  explored,  is  also  by  its  nature  so  subtle,  eluding 
one's  grasp  unless  one  handles  it  with  all  possible 
delicacy  and  care.  It  is  in  our  poetry  that  the 
Celtic  part  in  us  has  left  its  trace  clearest,  and  in 
our  poetry  I  must  follow  it  before  I  have  done. 

VI. 

If  I  were  asked  where  English  poetry  got  these 
three  things,  its  turn  for  style,  its  turn  for  melan- 
choly, and  its  turn  for  natural  magic,  for  catching 
and  rendering  the  charm  of  nature  in  a  wonderfully 
near  and  vivid  way, — I  should  answer,  with  some 
doubt,  that  it  got  much  of  its  turn  for  style  from  a 
Celtic  source;  with  less  doubt,  that  it  got  much  of 
its  melancholy  from  a  Celtic  source ;  with  no  doubt 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  103 

at  all,  that  from  a  Celtic  source  it  got  nearly  all  its 
natural  magic. 

Any  German  with  penetration  and  tact  in  matters 
of  literary  criticism  will  own  that  the  principal  de- 
ficiency of  Gennan  poetry  is  in  style ;  that  for  style, 
in  the  highest  sense,  it  shows  but  little  feeling.  Take 
the  eminent  masters  of  style,  the  poets  who  best  give 
the  idea  of  what  the  peculiar  power  which  lies  in 
style  is, — Pindar,  Virgil,  Dante,  Milton.  An  example 
of  the  peculiar  effect  which  these  poets  produce,  you 
can  hardly  give  from  German  poetry.  Examples 
enough  you  can  give  from  German  poetry  of  the 
effect  produced  by  genius,  thought,  and  feeling  ex- 
pressing themselves  in  clear  language,  simple  lan- 
guage, passionate  language,  eloquent  language,  with 
harmony  and  melody ;  but  not  of  the  peculiar  effect 
exercised  by  eminent  power  of  style.  Every  reader 
of  Dante  can  at  once  call  to  mind  what  the  peculiar 
effect  I  mean  is ;  I  spoke  of  it  in  my  lectures  on 
translating  Homer,  and  there  I  took  an  example  of 
it  from  Dante,  who  perhaps  manifests  it  more  emi- 
nently than  any  other  poet.  But  from  Milton,  too, 
one  may  take  examples  of  it  abundantly ;  compare 
this  from  Milton  : — 

nor  sometimes  forget 

Those  other  two  equal  with  me  in  fate, 
So  were  I  equall'd  with  them  in  renown, 
Blind  Thamyris  and  blind  Mteonides— 

with  this  from  Goethe  : — 

Es  bildet  ein  Talent  sieh  in  der  Stille, 
Sich  ein  Character  in  dem  Strom  der  "Welt 


104  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Nothing  can  be  better  in  its  way  than  the  style  in 
which  Goethe  there  presents  his  thought,  but  it  is 
the  style  of  prose  as  much  as  of  poetry ;  it  is  lucid, 
harmonious,  earnest,  eloquent,  but  it  has  not  received 
that  peculiar  kneading,  heightening,  and  recasting 
which  is  observable  in  the  style  of  the  passage  from 
Milton, — a  style  which  seems  to  have  for  its  cause  a 
certain  pressure  of  emotion,  and  an  ever-surging,  yet 
bridled,  excitement  in  the  poet,  giving  a  special 
intensity  to  his  way  of  delivering  himself.  In  poetical 
races  and  epochs  this  turn  for  style  is  peculiarly 
observable;  and  perhaps  it  is  only  on  condition  of 
having  this  somewhat  heightened  and  difficult  manner, 
so  different  from  the  plain  manner  of  prose,  that 
poetry  gets  the  privilege  of  being  loosed,  at  its  best 
moments,  into  that  perfectly  simple,  limpid  style, 
which  is  the  supreme  style  of  all,  but  the  simplicity 
of  which  is  still  not  the  simplicity  of  prose.  The 
simplicity  of  Menander's  style  is  the  simplicity  of 
prose,  and  is  the  same  kind  of  simplicity  as  that 
which  Goethe's  style,  in  the  passage  I  have  quoted, 
exhibits ;  but  Menander  does  not  belong  to  a  great 
poetical  moment,  he  comes  too  late  for  it ;  it  is  the 
simple  passages  in  poets  like  Pindar  or  Dante  which 
are  perfect,  being  masterpieces  of  poetical  simplicity. 
One  may  say  the  same  of  the  simple  passages  in 
Shakspeare ;  they  are  perfect,  their  simplicity  being 
a  poetical  simplicity.  They  are  the  golden,  easeful, 
crowning  moments  of  a  manner  which  is  always 
pitched  in  another  key  from  that  of  prose,  a  manner 
changed    and    heightened;    the    Elizabethan    style, 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  105 

regnant  in  most  of  our  dramatic  poetry  to  this  day, 
is  mainly  the  continuation  of  this  manner  of  Shak- 
speare's.  It  was  a  manner  much  more  turbid  and 
strewn  with  blemishes  than  the  manner  of  Pindar, 
Dante,  or  Milton ;  often  it  was  detestable ;  but  it 
owed  its  existence  to  Shakspeare's  instinctive  impulse 
towards  style  in  poetry,  to  his  native  sense  of  the 
necessity  for  it ;  and  without  the  basis  of  style  every- 
where, faulty  though  it  may  in  some  places  be,  we 
should  not  have  had  the  beauty  of  expression,  unsur- 
passable for  effectiveness  and  charm,  which  is  reached 
in  Shakspeare's  best  passages.  The  turn  for  style  is 
perceptible  all  through  English  poetry,  proving,  to 
my  mind,  the  genuine  poetical  gift  of  the  race ;  this 
turn  imparts  to  our  poetry  a  stamp  of  high  distinc- 
tion, and  sometimes  it  doubles  the  force  of  a  poet  not 
by  nature  of  the  very  highest  order,  such  as  Gray, 
and  raises  him  to  a  rank  beyond  what  his  natural 
richness  and  power  seem  to  promise.  Goethe,  with 
his  fine  critical  perception,  saw  clearly  enough  both 
the  power  of  style  in  itself,  and  the  lack  of  style  in 
the  literature  of  his  own  country ;  and  perhaps  if  we 
regard  him  solely  as  a  German,  not  as  a  European, 
his  great  work  was  that  he  laboured  all  his  life  to 
impart  style  into  German  literature,  and  firmly  to 
establish  it  there.  Hence  the  immense  importance 
to  him  of  the  world  of  classical  art,  and  of  the  pro- 
ductions of  Greek  or  Latin  genius,  where  style  so 
eminently  manifests  its  power.  Had  he  found  in  the 
German  genius  and  literature  an  element  of  style 
existing  by  nature  and  ready  to  his  hand,  half  his 


106  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

work,  one  may  say,  would  have  been  saved  him,  and 
he  might  have  done  much  more  in  poetry.  But  as  it 
was,  he  had  to  try  and  create,  out  of  his  own  powers, 
a  style  for  German  poetry,  as  well  as  to  provide  con- 
tents for  this  style  to  carry ;  and  thus  his  labour  as  a 
poet  was  doubled. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  power  of  style,  in  the 
sense  in  which  I  am  here  speaking  of  style,  is  some- 
thing quite  different  from  the  power  of  idiomatic, 
simple,  nervous,  racy  expression,  such  as  the  expres- 
sion of  healthy,  robust  natures  so  often  is,  such  as 
Luther's  was  in  a  striking  degree.  Style,  in  my  sense 
of  the  word,  is  a  peculiar  recasting  and  heightening, 
under  a  certain  condition  of  spiritual  excitement,  of 
what  a  man  has  to  say,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  add 
dignity  and  distinction  to  it ;  and  dignity  and  distinc- 
tion are  not  terms  which  suit  many  acts  or  words  of 
Luther.  Deeply  touched  with  the  Gemeinheit  which 
is  the  bane  of  his  nation,  as  he  is  at  the  same  time  a 
grand  example  of  the  honesty  which  is  his  nation's 
excellence,  he  can  seldom  even  show  himself  brave, 
resolute,  and  truthful,  without  showing  a  strong  dash 
of  coarseness  and  commonness  all  the  while ;  the 
right  definition  of  Luther,  as  of  our  own  Bunyan,  is 
that  he  is  a  Philistine  of  genius.  So  Luther's  sincere 
idiomatic  German,  —  such  language  is  this:  "Hilf 
lieber  Gott,  wie  manchen  Jammer  habe  ich  gesehen, 
dass  der  gemeine  Mann  doch  so  gar  nichts  weiss  von 
der  christlichen  Lehre  ! " — no  more  proves  a  power 
of  style  in  German  literature,  than  Cobbett's  sinewy 
idiomatic   English   proves   it   in   English    literature. 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  107 

Power  of  style,  properly  so  called,  as  manifested  in 
masters  of  style  like  Dante  or  Milton  in  poetry, 
Cicero,  Bossuet  or  Bolingbroke  in  prose,  is  some- 
thing quite  different,  and  has,  as  I  have  said,  for 
its  characteristic  effect,  this :  to  add  dignity  and  dis- 
tinction. 

Style,  then,  the  Germans  are  singularly  without, 
and  it  is  strange  that  the  power  of  style  should  show 
itself  so  strongly  as  it  does  in  the  Icelandic  poetry,  if 
the  Scandinavians  are  such  genuine  Teutons  as  is  com- 
monly supposed.  Fauriel  used  to  talk  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian Teutons  and  the  German  Teutons,  as  if  they 
were  two  divisions  of  the  same  people,  and  the  com- 
mon notion  about  them,  no  doubt,  is  very  much  this. 
Since  the  war  in  Schleswig-Holstein,  however,  all 
one's  German  friends  are  exceedingly  anxious  to 
insist  on  the  difference  of  nature  between  themselves 
and  the  Scandinavians ;  when  one  expresses  surprise 
that  the  German  sense  of  nationalitv  should  be  so 
deeply  affronted  by  the  rule  over  Germans,  not  of 
Latins  or  Celts,  but  of  brother  Teutons  or  next  door 
to  it,  a  German  will  give  you  I  know  not  how  long  a 
catalogue  of  the  radical  points  of  unlikeness,  in  genius 
and  disposition,  between  himself  and  a  Dane.  This 
emboldens  me  to  remark  that  there  is  a  fire,  a  sense 
of  style,  a  distinction,  in  Icelandic  poetry,  which 
German  poetry  has  not.  Icelandic  poetry,  too,  shows 
a  powerful  and  developed  technic ;  and  I  wish  to 
throw  out,  for  examination  by  those  who  are  com- 
petent to  sift  the  matter,  the  suggestion  that  this 
power  of  style  and  development  of  technic  in  the 


108  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

Norse  poetry  seems  to  point  towards  an  early  Celtic 
influence  or  intermixture.  It  is  curious  that  Zeuss, 
in  his  grammar,  quotes  a  text  which  gives  counte- 
nance to  this  notion ;  as  late  as  the  ninth  century,  he 
says,  there  were  Irish  Celts  in  Iceland ;  and  the  text 
he  quotes  to  show  this,  is  as  follows  : — "  In  870  A.D., 
when  the  Norwegians  came  to  Iceland,  there  were 
Christians  there,  who  departed,  and  left  behind  them 
Irish  books,  bells,  and  other  things ;  from  whence  it 
may  be  inferred  that  these  Christians  were  Irish." 
I  speak,  and  ought  to  speak,  with  the  utmost  diffi- 
dence on  all  these  questions  of  ethnology;  but  I 
must  say  that  when  I  read  this  text  in  Zeuss,  I 
caught  eagerly  at  the  clue  it  seemed  to  offer  •  for  I 
had  been  hearing  the  Nibelungen  read  and  commented 
on  in  German  schools  (German  schools  have  the  good 
habit  of  reading  and  commenting  on  German  poetry, 
as  we  read  and  comment  on  Homer  and  Virgil,  but 
do  not  read  and  comment  on  Chaucer  and  Shakspeare), 
and  it  struck  me  how  the  fatal  humdrum  and  want 
of  style  of  the  Germans  had  marred  their  way  of 
telling  this  magnificent  tradition  of  the  Nibelungen, 
and  taken  half  its  grandeur  and  power  out  of  it ; 
while  in  the  Icelandic  poems  which  deal  with  this 
tradition,  its  grandeur  and  power  are  much  more 
fully  visible,  and  everywhere  in  the  poetry  of  the 
Edda  there  is  a  force  of  style  and  a  distinction  as 
unlike  as  possible  to  the  want  of  both  in  the  German 
Nibelungen.1     At  the  same  time   the   Scandinavians 

1  Lord  Strangford's  note  on  this  is: — "The  Irish  monks 
whose  bells  and  books  were  found  in  Iceland  could  not  have 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  109 

have  a  realism,  as  it  is  called,  in  their  genius,  which 
abundantly  proves  their  relationship  with  the  Ger- 
mans ;  any  one  whom  Mr.  Dasent's  delightful  books 
have  made  acquainted  with  the  prose  tales  of  the 
Norsemen,  will  be  struck  with  the  stamp  of  a  Teutonic 
nature  in  them ;  but  the  Norse  poetry  seems  to  have 
something  which  from  Teutonic  sources  alone  it  could 
not  have  derived ;  which  the  Germans  have  not,  and 
which  the  Celts  have. 

This  something  is  style,  and  the  Celts  certainly 
have  it  in  a  wonderful  measure.  Style  is  the  most 
striking  quality  of  their  poetry.  Celtic  poetry  seems 
to  make  up  to  itself  for  being  unable  to  master  the 
world  and  give  an  adequate  interpretation  of  it,  by 
throwing  all  its  force  into  style,  by  bending  language 
at  any  rate  to  its  will,  and  expressing  the  ideas  it 
has  with  unsurpassable  intensity,  elevation,  and  effect 
It  has  all  through  it  a  sort  of  intoxication  of  style, — 
a  Pindarism,  to  use  a  word  formed  from  the  name  of 

contributed  anything  to  the  old  Norse  spirit,  for  they  had  per- 
ished before  the  first  Norsemen  had  set  foot  on  the  island. 
The  form  of  the  old  Norse  poetry  known  to  us  as  Icelandic, 
from  the  accident  of  its  preservation  in  that  island  alone,  is 
surely  Pan-Teutonic  from  old  times  ;  the  art  and  method  of  its 
strictly  literary  cultivation  must  have  been  much  influenced  by 
the  contemporary  Old-English  national  poetry,  with  which  the 
Norsemen  were  in  constant  contact ;  and  its  larger,  freer,  and 
wilder  spirit  must  have  been  owing  to  their  freer  and  wilder 
life,  to  say  nothing  of  their  roused  and  warring  paganism. 
They  could  never  have  known  any  Celts  save  when  living  in 
embryo  with  other  Teutons." 

Very  likely  Lord  Strangford  is  right,  but  the  proposition 
with  which  he  begins  is  at  variance  with  what  the  text  quoted 
by  Zeuss  alleges. 


110  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

the  poet,  on  whom,  above  all  other  poets,  the  power 
of  style  seems  to  have  exercised  an  inspiring  and 
intoxicating  effect ;  and  not  in  its  great  poets  only, 
in  Taliesin,  or  Llywarch  Hen,  or  Ossian,  does  the 
Celtic  genius  show  this  Pindarism,  but  in  all  its 
productions : — 

"  The  grave  of  March  is  this,  and  this  the  grave  of  Gwythyr  ; 
Here  is  the  grave  of  Gwgawn  Gleddyfreidd  ; 
But  unknown  is  the  grave  of  Arthur." 

That  comes  from  the  Welsh  Memorials  of  the  Graves 
of  the  Warriors,  and  if  we  compare  it  with  the  familiar 
memorial  inscriptions  of  an  English  churchyard  (for 
we  English  have  so  much  Germanism  in  us  that  our 
productions  offer  abundant  examples  of  German  want 
of  style  as  well  as  of  its  opposite) : — 

' '  Afflictions  sore  long  time  I  bore, 
Physicians  were  in  vain, 
Till  God  did  please  Death  should  me  seize 
And  ease  me  of  my  pain  " — 

if,  I  say,  we  compare  the  Welsh  memorial  lines  with 
the  English,  which  in  their  Gemeinheit  of  style  are 
truly  Germanic,  we  shall  get  a  clear  sense  of  what 
that  Celtic  talent  for  style  I  have  been  speaking  of  is. 
Or  take  this  epitaph  of  an  Irish  Celt,  Angus  the 
Culdee,  whose  FdlirS,  or  festology,  I  have  already 
mentioned ; — a  festology  in  which,  at  the  end  of  the 
eighth  or  beginning  of  the  ninth  century,  he  collected 
from  "  the  countless  hosts  of  the  illuminated  books  of 
Erin  "  (to  use  his  own  words)  the  festivals  of  the  Irish 
saints,  his  poem  having  a  stanza  for  every  day  in  the 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  Ill 

year.  The  epitaph  on  Angus,  who  died  at  Cluain 
Eidhnech,  in  Queen's  County,  runs  thus : — 

"  Angus  in  the  assembly  of  Heaven, 
Here  are  his  tomb  and  his  bed  ; 
It  is  from  hence  he  went  to  death, 
In  the  Friday,  to  holy  Heaven. 

"It  was  in  Cluain  Eidhnech  he  was  rear'd  ; 
It  was  in  Cluain  Eidhnech  he  was  buried  ; 
In  Cluain  Eidhnech,  of  many  crosses, 
He  first  read  his  psalms." 

That  is  by  no  eminent  hand  ;  and  yet  a  Greek  epitaph 
could  not  show  a  finer  perception  of  what  constitutes 
propriety  and  felicity  of  style  in  compositions  of  this 
nature.  Take  the  well-known  Welsh  prophecy  about 
the  fate  of  the  Britons  : — 

"  Their  Lord  they  will  praise, 
Their  speech  they  will  keep, 
Their  land  they  will  lose, 
Except  wild  Wales. " 

To  however  late  an  epoch  that  prophecy  belongs, 
what  a  feeling  for  style,  at  any  rate,  it  manifests  ! 
And  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  famous 
Welsh  triads.  We  may  put  aside  all  the  vexed  ques- 
tions as  to  their  greater  or  less  antiquity,  and  still 
what  important  witness  they  bear  to  the  genius  for 
literary  style  of  the  people  who  produced  them  ! 

Now  we  English  undoubtedly  exhibit  very  often 
the  want  of  sense  for  style  of  our  German  kinsmen. 
The  churchyard  lines  I  just  now  quoted  afford  an 
instance  of  it ;  but  the  whole  branch  of  our  literature, 
— and  a  very  popular  branch  it  is,  our  hymnology, — 


112  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

to  which  those  lines  are  to  be  referred,  is  one  con- 
tinued instance  of  it.  Our  German  kinsmen  and  we 
are  the  great  people  for  hymns.  The  Germans  are 
very  proud  of  their  hymns,  and  we  are  very  proud 
of  ours ;  but  it  is  hard  to  say  which  of  the  two,  the 
German  hymn-book  or  ours,  has  least  poetical  worth 
in  itself,  or  does  least  to  prove  genuine  poetical 
power  in  the  people  producing  it.  I  have  not  a  word 
to  say  against  Sir  Eoundell  Palmer's  choice  and  ar- 
rangement of  materials  for  his  Book  of  Praise  ;  I  am 
content  to  put  them  on  a  level  (and  that  is  giving 
them  the  highest  possible  rank)  with  Mr.  Palgrave's 
choice  and  arrangement  of  materials  for  his  Golden 
Treasury ;  but  yet  no  sound  critic  can  doubt  that,  so 
far  as  poetry  is  concerned,  while  the  Golden  Treasury 
is  a  monument  of  a  nation's  strength,  the  Book  of 
Praise  is  a  monument  of  a  nation's  weakness.  Only 
the  German  race,  with  its  want  of  quick  instinctive 
tact,  of  delicate,  sure  perception,  could  have  invented 
the  hymn  as  the  Germans  and  we  have  it ;  and  our 
non-German  turn  for  style, — style,  of  which  the  very 
essence  is  a  certain  happy  fineness  and  truth  of  poeti- 
cal perception, — could  not  but  desert  us  when  our 
German  nature  carried  us  into  a  kind  of  composition 
which  can  please  only  when  the  perception  is  some- 
what blunt.  Scarcely  any  one  of  us  ever  judges  our 
hymns  fairly,  because  works  of  this  kind  have  two 
sides, — their  side  for  religion  and  their  side  for 
poetry.  Everything  which  has  helped  a  man  in  his 
religious  life,  everything  which  associates  itself  in  his 
mind  with  the  growth  of  that  life,  is  beautiful  and 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  113 

venerable  to  him ;  in  this  way,  productions  of  little 
or  no  poetical  value,  like  the  German  hymns  and 
ours,  may  come  to  be  regarded  as  very  precious. 
Their  worth  in  this  sense,  as  means  by  which  we  have 
been  edified,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  hold  cheap ;  but 
there  is  an  edification  proper  to  all  our  stages  of  de- 
velopment, the  highest  as  well  as  the  lowest,  and  it  is 
for  man  to  press  on  towards  the  highest  stages  of  his 
development,  with  the  certainty  that  for  those  stages, 
too,  means  of  edification  will  not  be  found  wanting. 
Now  certainly  it  is  a  higher  state  of  development 
when  our  fineness  of  perception  is  keen  than  when 
it  is  blunt.  And  if, — whereas  the  Semitic  genius 
placed  its  highest  spiritual  life  in  the  religious  senti- 
ment, and  made  that  the  basis  of  its  poetry, — the 
Indo-European  genius  places  its  highest  spiritual  life 
in  the  imaginative  reason,  and  makes  that  the  basis 
of  its  poetry,  Ave  are  none  the  better  for  wanting  the 
perception  to  discern  a  natural  law,  which  is,  after  all, 
like  every  natural  law,  irresistible ;  we  are  none  the 
better  for  trying  to  make  ourselves  Semitic,  when 
Nature  has  made  us  Indo-European,  and  to  shift  the 
basis  of  our  poetry.  We  may  mean  well ;  all  manner 
of  good  may  happen  to  us  on  the  road  we  go ;  but 
we  are  not  on  our  real  right  road,  the  road  we  must 
in  the  end  follow. 

That  is  why,  when  our  hymns  betray  a  false 
tendency  by  losing  a  power  which  accompanies  the 
poetical  work  of  our  race  on  our  other  more  suitable 
lines,  the  indication  thus  given  is  of  great  value  and 
instructiveness   for   us.      One  of  our  main  gifts  for 

VOL.  II.  I 


114  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

poetry  deserts  us  in  our  hymns,  and  so  gives  us  a 
hint  as  to  the  one  true  basis  for  the  spiritual  work  of 
an  Indo-European  people,  which  the  Germans,  who 
have  not  this  particular  gift  of  ours,  do  not  and  can- 
not get  in  this  way,  though  they  may  get  it  in  others. 
It  is  worth   noticing   that   the  masterpieces   of   the 
spiritual  work  of  Indo-Europeans,  taking  the  pure  re- 
ligious sentiment,  and  not  the  imaginative  reason,  for 
their  basis,  are  works  like  the  Imitation,  the  Dies  Ires, 
the  Stabat  Mater,— works  clothing  themselves  in  the 
Middle- Age  Latin,  the  genuine  native  voice  of  no  Indo- 
European  nation.     The  perfection  of  their  kind,  but 
that    kind    not    perfectly    legitimate,   they   take    a 
language  not  perfectly  legitimate  ;  as  if  to  show,  that 
when  mankind's  Semitic  age  is  once  passed,  the  age 
which  produced  the  great  incomparable  monuments  of 
the  pure  religious  sentiment,  the  books  of  Job  and 
Isaiah,  the   Psalms, — works   truly  to   be   called  in- 
spired, because  the  same  divine  power  which  worked 
in  those  who  produced  them  works  no  longer, — as  if 
to  show  us,  that,  after  this  primitive  age,  we  Indo- 
Europeans  must  feel  these  works  without  attempting 
to  remake  them ;  and  that  our  poetry,  if  it  tries  to 
make  itself  simply  the  organ  of  the  religious  senti- 
ment, leaves  the  true  course,  and  must  conceal  this 
by  not   speaking  a  living  language.      The   moment 
it  speaks  a  living  language,  and  still  makes  itself  the 
organ    of    the   religious   sentiment   only,    as   in   the 
German  and  English  hymns,  it  betrays  weakness  ;— 
the  weakness  of  all  false  tendency. 

But   if,   by   attending   to   the   Germanism   in    us 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  115 

English  and  to  its  works,  one  has  come  to  doubt 
whether  we,  too,  are  not  thorough  Germans  by 
genius  and  with  the  German  deadness  to  style,  one 
has  only  to  repeat  to  oneself  a  line  of  Milton, — a 
poet  intoxicated  with  the  passion  for  style  as  much  as 
Taliesin  or  Pindar, — to  see  that  we  have  another  side 
to  our  genius  beside  the  German  one.  Whence  do  we 
get  it  ?  The  Normans  may  have  brought  in  among 
us  the  Latin  sense  for  rhetoric  and  style, — for,  indeed, 
this  sense  goes  naturally  with  a  high  spirit  and  a 
strenuousness  like  theirs, — but  the  sense  for  style 
which  English  poetry  shows  is  something  finer  than 
we  could  well  have  got  from  a  people  so  positive  and 
so  little  poetical  as  the  Normans ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
we  may  much  more  plausibly  derive  it  from  a  root  of 
the  poetical  Celtic  nature  in  us. 

Its  chord  of  penetrating  passion  and  melancholy, 
again,  its  Titanism  as  we  see  it  in  Byron, — what  other 
European  poetry  possesses  that  like  the  English,  and 
where  do  we  get  it  from  1  The  Celts,  with  their 
vehement  reaction  against  the  despotism  of  fact,  with 
their  sensuous  nature,  their  manifold  striving,  their 
adverse  destiny,  their  immense  calamities,  the  Celts 
are  the  prime  authors  of  this  vein  of  piercing  regret 
and  passion, — of  this  Titanism  in  poetry.  A  famous 
book,  Macpherson's  Ossian,  carried  in  the  last  century 
this  vein  like  a  flood  of  lava  through  Europe.  I  am 
not  going  to  criticise  Macpherson's  Ossian  here.  Make 
the  part  of  what  is  forged,  modern,  tawdry,  spurious, 
in  the  book,  as  large  as  you  please ;  strip  Scotland,  if 
you  like,  of  every  feather  of  borrowed  plumes  which 


116  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

on  the  strength  of  Macpherson's  Ossian  she  may  have 
stolen  from  that  vetus  et  major  Scotia,  the  true  home 
of  the  Ossianic  poetry,  Ireland ;  I  make  no  objection. 
But  there  will  still  be  left  in  the  book  a  residue  with 
the  very  soul  of  the  Celtic  genius  in  it,  and  which 
has  the  proud  distinction  of  having  brought  this  soul 
of  the  Celtic  genius  into  contact  with  the  genius  of 
the  nations  of  modern  Europe,  and  enriched  all  our 
poetry  by  it.  Woody  Morven,  and  echoing  Sora,  and 
Selma  with  its  silent  halls  ! — we  all  owe  them  a  debt 
of  gratitude,  and  when  we  are  unjust  enough  to  for- 
get it,  may  the  Muse  forget  us  !  Choose  any  one  of 
the  better  passages  in  Macpherson's  Ossian  and  you 
can  see  even  at  this  time  of  day  what  an  apparition 
of  newness  and  power  such  a  strain  must  have  been 
to  the  eighteenth  century  : — 

"  I  have  seen  the  walls  of  Balclutha,  but  they  were 
desolate.  The  fox  looked  out  from  the  windows,  the 
rank  grass  of  the  wall  waved  round  her  head.  Raise 
the  song  of  mourning,  0  bards,  over  the  land  of 
strangers.  They  have  but  fallen  before  us,  for  one 
day  we  must  fall.  Why  dost  thou  build  the  hall,  son 
of  the  winged  days  ?  Thou  lookest  from  thy  towers 
to-day ;  yet  a  few  years,  and  the  blast  of  the  desert 
comes;  it  howls  in  thy  empty  court,  and  whistles 
round  thy  half-worn  shield.  Let  the  blast  of  the 
desert  come  !  we  shall  be  renowned  in  our  day." 

All  Europe  felt  the  power  of  that  melancholy  ;  but 
what  I  wish  to  point  out  is,  that  no  nation  of  Europe 
so  caught  in  its  poetry  the  passionate  penetrating 
accent  of  the  Celtic  genius,  its  strain  of  Titanism,  as 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  117 

the  English.  Goethe,  like  Napoleon,  felt  the  spell  of 
Ossian  very  powerfully,  and  he  quotes  a  long  passage 
from  him  in  his  Werther.  But  what  is  there  Celtic, 
turbulent,  and  Titanic  about  the  German  Werther, 
that  amiable,  cultivated,  and  melancholy  young  man, 
having  for  his  sorrow  and  suicide  the  perfectly  de- 
finite motive  that  Lotte  cannot  be  his  1  Faust,  again, 
has  nothing  unaccountable,  defiant,  and  Titanic  in 
him  ;  his  knowledge  does  not  bring  him  the  satisfac- 
tion he  expected  from  it,  and  meanwhile  he  finds 
himself  poor  and  growing  old,  and  baulked  of  the 
palpable  enjoyment  of  life  ;  and  here  is  the  motive 
for  Faust's  discontent.  In  the  most  energetic  and 
impetuous  of  Goethe's  creations, — his  Prometheus, — 
it  is  not  Celtic  self-will  and  passion,  it  is  rather  the 
Germanic  sense  of  justice  and  reason,  which  revolts 
against  the  despotism  of  Zeus.  The  German  Sehnsucht 
itself  is  a  wistful,  soft,  tearful  longing,  rather  than  a 
struggling,  fierce,  passionate  one.  But  the  Celtic 
melancholy  is  struggling,  fierce,  passionate  ;  to  catch 
its  note,  listen  to  Lly  warch  Hen  in  old  age,  addressing 
his  crutch : — 

' '  0  my  crutch  !  is  it  not  autumn,  when  the  fern  is  red,  the 
water-flag  yellow  ?     Have  I  not  hated  that  which  I  love  ? 

' '  0  my  crutch  !  is  it  not  winter- time  now,  when  men  talk 
together  after  that  they  have  drunken  ?  Is  not  the  side  of  my 
bed  left  desolate  ? 

' '  0  my  crutch  !  is  it  not  spring,  when  the  cuckoo  passes 
through  the  air,  when  the  foam  sparkles  on  the  sea  ?  The  young 
maidens  no  longer  love  me. 

"  0  my  crutch  !  is  it  not  the  first  day  of  May  ?  The  furrows, 
are  they  not  shining  ;  the  young  corn,  is  it  not  springing  ?  Ah  I 
the  sight  of  thy  handle  makes  me  wroth. 


118  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

' '  0  my  crutch  !  stand  straight,  thou  wilt  support  me  tht 
better  ;  it  is  very  long  since  I  was  Llywarch. 

"  Behold  old  age,  which  makes  sport  of  me,  from  the  hair  of 
my  head  to  my  teeth,  to  my  eyes,  which  women  loved. 

"The  four  things  I  have  all  my  life  most  hated  fall  upon  me 
together, — coughing  and  old  age,  sickness  and  sorrow. 

"  I  am  old,  I  am  alone,  shapeliness  and  warmth  are  gone  from 
me  ;  the  couch  of  honour  shall  be  no  more  mine  ;  I  am  miser- 
able, I  am  bent  on  my  crutch. 

' '  How  evil  was  the  lot  allotted  to  Llywarch,  the  night  when 
he  was  brought  forth  !  sorrows  without  end,  and  no  deliverance 
from  his  burden." 

There  is  the  Titanism  of  the  Celt,  his  passionate, 
turbulent,  indomitable  reaction  against  the  despotisn? 
of  fact ;  and  of  whom  does  it  remind  us  so  much  as 
of  Byron  ? 

"  The  fire  which  on  my  bosom  preys 
Is  lone  as  some  volcanic  isle  ; 
No  torch  is  kindled  at  its  blaze  ; 
A  funeral  pile  !  " 

Or,  again  : — 

"  Count  o'er  the  joys  thine  hours  have  seen, 
Count  o'er  thy  days  from  anguish  free, 
And  know,  whatever  thou  hast  been, 
'Tis  something  better  not  to  be." 

One  has  only  to  let  one's  memory  begin  to  fetch 
passages  from  Byron  striking  the  same  note  as  that 
passage  from  Llywarch  Hen,  and  she  will  not  soon 
stop.  And  all  Byron's  heroes,  not  so  much  in  collision 
with  outward  things,  as  breaking  on  some  rock  of 
revolt  and  misery  in  the  depths  of  their  own  nature ; 
Manfred,  self-consumed,  fighting  blindly  and  passion- 
ately with  I  know  not  what,  having  nothing  of  the 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  119 

consistent  development  and  intelligible  motive  of 
Faust, — Manfred,  Lara,  Cain,  what  are  they  but 
Titanic  1  Where  in  European  poetry  are  we  to  find 
this  Celtic  passion  of  revolt  so  warm-breathing,  puis- 
sant, and  sincere ;  except  perhaps  in  the  creation  of 
a  yet  greater  poet  than  Byron,  but  an  English  poet, 
too,  like  Byron, — in  the  Satan  of  Milton  1 

•  •  •  ■  "  What  though  the  field  be  lost  ? 
All  is  not  lost ;  the  unconquerable  will, 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield, 
And  what  is  else  not  to  be  overcome." 

There,  surely,  speaks  a  genius  to  whose  composition 
the  Celtic  fibre  was  not  wholly  a  stranger  ! 

And  as,  after  noting  the  Celtic  Pindarism  or  power 
of  style  present  in  our  poetry,  we  noted  the  German 
flatness  coming  in  in  our  hymns,  and  found  here  a 
proof  of  our  compositeness  of  nature  ;  so,  after  noting 
the  Celtic  Titanism  or  power  of  rebellious  passion  in 
our  poetry,  we  may  also  note  the  Germanic  patience 
and  reasonableness  in  it,  and  get  in  this  way  a  second 
proof  how  mixed  a  spirit  we  have.  After  Llywarch 
Hen's  :— 

"  How  evil  was  the  lot  allotted  to  Llywarch,  the  night  when 
he  was  brought  forth  " — 

after  Byron's : — 

"  Count  o'er  the  joys  thine  hours  have  seen  " — 

take  this  of  South ey's,  in  answer  to  the  question 
whether  he  would  like  to  have  his  youth  over 
again : — 


120  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

"  Do  I  regret  the  past  ? 
Would  I  live  o'er  again 
The  morning  hours  of  life  ? 
Nay,  William,  nay,  not  so  ! 
Praise  be  to  God  who  made  me  what  I  am, 
Other  I  would  not  be." 

There  we  have  the  other  side  of  our  being ;  the 
Germanic  goodness,  docility,  and  fidelity  to  nature, 
in  place  of  the  Celtic  Titanism. 

The  Celt's  quick  feeling  for  what  is  noble  and 
distinguished  gave  his  poetry  style ;  his  indomitable 
personality  gave  it  pride  and  passion ;  his  sensibility 
and  nervous  exaltation  gave  it  a  better  gift  still,  the 
gift  of  rendering  with  wonderful  felicity  the  magical 
charm  of  nature.  The  forest  solitude,  the  bubbling 
spring,  the  wild  flowers,  are  everywhere  in  romance. 
They  have  a  mysterious  life  and  grace  there ;  they 
are  Nature's  own  children,  and  utter  her  secret  in  a 
way  which  make  them  something  quite  different  from 
the  woods,  waters,  and  plants  of  Greek  and  Latin 
poetry.  Now  of  this  delicate  magic,  Celtic  romance 
is  so  pre-eminent  a  mistress,  that  it  seems  impossible 
to  believe  the  power  did  not  come  into  romance  from 
the  Celts.1  Magic  is  just  the  word  for  it, — the  magic 
of  nature  ;  not  merely  the  beauty  of  nature, — that  the 
Greeks  and  Latins  had ;  not  merely  an  honest  smack 
of  the  soil,  a  faithful  realism, — that  the  Germans  had ; 
but  the  intimate  life  of  Nature,  her  weird  power  and 

1  Ehyme, — the  most  striking  characteristic  of  our  modern 
poetry  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  ancients,  and  a  main 
source,  to  our  poetry,  of  its  magic  and  charm,  of  what  we  call 
its  romantic  element, — rhyme  itself,  all  the  weight  of  evidence 
tends  to  show,  comes  into  our  poetry  from  the  Celts. 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  121 

her  fairy  charm.  As  the  Saxon  names  of  places,  with 
the  pleasant  wholesome  smack  of  the  soil  in  them, — 
Weathersfield,  Thaxted,  Shalford, — are  to  the  Celtic 
names  of  places,  with  their  penetrating,  lofty  heauty, 
— Velindra,  Tyntagel,  Caernarvon, — so  is  the  homely 
realism  of  German  and  Norse  nature  to  the  fairy-like 
loveliness  of  Celtic  nature.  Gwydion  wants  a  wife 
for  his  pupil:  "Well,"  says  Math,  "we  will  seek,  I 
and  thou,  by  charms  and  illusions,  to  form  a  wife  for 
him  out  of  flowers.  So  they  took  the  blossoms  of  the 
oak,  and  the  blossoms  of  the  broom,  and  the  blossoms 
of  the  meadow-sweet,  and  produced  from  them  a 
maiden,  the  fairest  and  most  graceful  that  man  ever 
saw.  And  they  baptized  her,  and  gave  her  the  name 
of  Flower- Aspect."  Celtic  romance  is  full  of  exquisite 
touches  like  that,  showing  the  delicacy  of  the  Celt's 
feeling  in  these  matters,  and  how  deeply  Nature  lets 
him  come  into  her  secrets.  The  quick  dropping  of 
blood  is  called  "  faster  than  the  fall  of  the  dewdrop 
from  the  blade  of  reed -grass  upon  the  earth,  when 
the  dew  of  June  is  at  the  heaviest."  And  thus  is 
01  wen  described  :  "  More  yellow  was  her  hair  than 
the  flower  of  the  broom,  and  her  skin  was  whiter 
than  the  foam  of  the  wave,  and  fairer  were  her  hands 
and  her  fingers  than  the  blossoms  of  the  wood-anemony 
amidst  the  spray  of  the  meadow  fountains. "  For  loveli- 
ness it  would  be  hard  to  beat  that ;  and  for  magical 
clearness  and  nearness  take  the  following  : — 

"And  in  the  evening  Peredur  entered  a  valley, 
and  at  the  head  of  the  valley  he  came  to  a  hermit's 
cell,  and  the  hermit  welcomed  him  gladly,  and  there 


122  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

he  spent  the  night.  And  in  the  morning  he  arose, 
and  when  he  went  forth,  behold,  a  shower  of  snow 
had  fallen  the  night  before,  and  a  hawk  had  killed  a 
wild-fowl  in  front  of  the  cell.  And  the  noise  of  the 
horse  scared  the  hawk  away,  and  a  raven  alighted 
upon  the  bird.  And  Peredur  stood  and  compared 
the  blackness  of  the  raven,  and  the  whiteness  of  the 
snow,  and  the  redness  of  the  blood,  to  the  hair  of  the 
lady  whom  best  he  loved,  which  was  blacker  than  the 
raven,  and  to  her  skin,  which  was  whiter  than  the 
snow,  and  to  her  two  cheeks,  which  were  redder  than 
the  blood  upon  the  snow  appeared  to  be." 

And  this,  which  is  perhaps  less  striking,  is  not  less 
beautiful : — 

"  And  early  in  the  day  Geraint  and  Enid  left  the 
wood,  and  they  came  to  an  open  country,  with 
meadows  on  one  hand  and  mowers  mowing  the 
meadows.  And  there  was  a  river  before  them,  and 
the  horses  bent  down  and  drank  the  water.  And 
they  went  up  out  of  the  river  by  a  steep  bank,  and 
there  they  met  a  slender  stripling  with  a  satchel 
about  his  neck ;  and  he  had  a  small  blue  pitcher  in 
his  hand,  and  a  bowl  on  the  mouth  of  the  pitcher." 

And  here  the  landscape,  up  to  this  point  so  Greek 
in  its  clear  beauty,  is  suddenly  magicalised  by  the 
romance  touch  : — 

"  And  they  saw  a  tall  tree  by  the  side  of  the  river, 
one-half  of  which  was  in  flames  from  the  root  to  the 
top,  and  the  other  half  was  green  and  in  full  leaf." 

Magic  is  the  word  to  insist  upon, — a  magically 
vivid  and  near  interpretation  of  nature ;  since  it  is 


CELTIC  LITEEATUEE.  123 

this  which  constitutes  the  special  charm  and  power 
of  the  effect  I  am  calling  attention  to,  and  it  is  for 
this  that  the  Celt's  sensibility  gives  him  a  peculiar 
aptitude.  But  the  matter  needs  rather  fine  handling, 
and  it  is  easy  to  make  mistakes  here  in  our  criticism. 
In  the  first  place,  Europe  tends  constantly  to  become 
more  and  more  one  community,  and  we  tend  to 
become  Europeans  instead  of  merely  Englishmen, 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians ;  so  whatever  aptitude 
or  felicity  one  people  imparts  into  spiritual  work, 
gets  imitated  by  the  others,  and  thus  tends  to  become 
the  common  property  of  all.  Therefore  anything  so 
beautiful  and  attractive  as  the  natural  magic  I  am 
speaking  of,  is  sure,  nowadays,  if  it  appears  in  the 
productions  of  the  Celts,  or  of  the  English,  or  of  the 
French,  to  appear  in  the  productions  of  the  Germans 
also,  or  in  the  productions  of  the  Italians ;  but  there 
will  be  a  stamp  of  perfectness  and  inimitableness 
about  it  in  the  literatures  where  it  is  native,  which  it 
will  not  have  in  the  literatures  where  it  is  not  native. 
Novalis  or  Eiickert,  for  instance,  have  their  eye  fixed 
on  nature,  and  have  undoubtedly  a  feeling  for  natural 
magic ;  a  rough-and-ready  critic  easily  credits  them 
and  the  Germans  with  the  Celtic  fineness  of  tact,  the 
Celtic  nearness  to  Nature  and  her  secret ;  but  the 
question  is  whether  the  strokes  in  the  German's 
picture  of  nature1  have  ever  the  indefinable  delicacy, 

1  Take  the  following  attempt  to  render  the  natural  magic 
supposed  to  pervade  Tieek's  poetry: — "  In  diesen  Diehtungen 
herrscht  eine  geheimnissvolle  Innigkeit,  ein  sonderbares  Einver- 
standniss  mit  der  Natur,  besonders  mit  der  Pfianzen-und  Stein- 
reich.      Der  Leser   fiililt  sich  da  wie   in   einem   verzauberten 


124  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

charm,  and  perfection  of  the  Celt's  touch  in  the  pieces 
I  just  now  quoted,  or  of  Shakspeare's  touch  in  his 
daffodil,  Wordsworth's  in  his  cuckoo,  Keats's  in  his 
Autumn,  Obermann's  in  his  mountain  birch-tree  or 
his  Easter-daisy  among  the  Swiss  farms.  To  decide 
where  the  gift  for  natural  magic  originally  lies, 
whether  it  is  properly  Celtic  or  Germanic,  we  must 
decide  this  question. 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  many  ways  of 
handling  nature,  and  we  are  here  only  concerned 
with  one  of  them ;  but  a  rough-and-ready  critic 
imagines  that  it  is  all  the  same  so  long  as  nature 
is  handled  at  all,  and  fails  to  draw  the  needful  dis- 
tinction between  modes  of  handling  her.  But  these 
modes  are  many ;  I  will  mention  four  of  them  now  : 
there  is  the  conventional  way  of  handling  nature, 
there  is  the  faithful  way  of  handling  nature,  there  is 
the  Greek  way  of  handling  nature,  there  is  the 
magical  way  of  handling  nature.  In  all  these  three 
last  the  eye  is  on  the  object,  but  with  a  difference  ; 
in  the  faithful  way  of  handling  nature,  the  eye  is  on 

"Walde  ;  er  hbrt  die  unterirdischen  Quellen  melodisch  rauschen  ; 
wildfremde  "Wunderblumen  schauen  ihn  an  mit  ihren  bunten 
sehnsiichtigen  Augen ;  unsichtbare  Lippen  kiissen  seine  Wangen 
mit  neckender  Zartlichkeit ;  hohe  Pilze,  wie  goldne  Glockcn, 
wachsen  Iclingend  empor  am  Fusse  der  Baume;"  and  so  on. 
Now  that  stroke  of  the  hohe  Pilze,  the  great  funguses,  would 
have  been  impossible  to  the  tact  and  delicacy  of  a  born  lover 
of  nature  like  the  Celt,  and  could  only  have  come  from  a  German 
who  has  hineinstudirt  himself  into  natural  magic.  It  is  a  cry- 
ing false  note,  which  carries  us  at  once  out  of  the  world  of 
nature-magic  and  the  breath  of  the  woods,  into  the  world  of 
theatre-magic  and  the  smell  of  gas  and  orange-peel. 


CELTIC  LITEEATURE.  125 

the  object,  and  that  is  all  you  can  say ;  in  the  Greek, 
the  eye  is  on  the  object,  but  lightness  and  brightness 
are  added ;  in  the  magical,  the  eye  is  on  the  object, 
but  charm  and  magic  are  added.  In  the  conventional 
way  of  handling  nature,  the  eye  is  not  on  the  object ; 
what  that  means  we  all  know,  we  have  only  to  think 
of  our  eighteenth-century  poetry  : — 

"As  when  the  moon,  refulgent  lamp  of  night" — 

to  call  up  any  number  of  instances.  Latin  poetry 
supplies  plenty  of  instances  too ;  if  we  put  this  from 
Propertius's  Hylas : — 

' '  manus  heroum     .... 
Mollia  composita  litora  fronde  tegit " — 

side  by  side  the  line  of  Theocritus  by  which  it  was 
suggested : — 

"\ei/j.wv  yap  c<piv  ^kcito  /U^yas,  an^ddeaaip  oveiap" — 

we  get  at  the  same  moment  a  good  specimen  both  of 
the  conventional  and  of  the  Greek  way  of  handling 
nature.  But  from  our  own  poetry  we  may  get  speci- 
mens of  the  Greek  way  of  handling  nature,  as  well  as 
of  the  conventional :  for  instance,  Keats's  : — 

"  What  little  town,  by  river  or  seashore, 
Or  mountain-built  with  quiet  citadel, 
Is  emptied  of  its  folk,  this  pious  morn  ? " 

is  Greek,  as  Greek  as  a  thing  from  Homer  or  Theo- 
critus ;  it  is  composed  with  the  eye  on  the  object,  a 
radiancy  and  light  clearness  being  added.  German 
poetry  abounds  in  specimens  of  the  faithful  way  of 
handling  nature ;  an  excellent  example  is  to  be  found 


126  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

in  the  stanzas  called  Zueignung,  prefixed  to  Goethe's 
poems  ;  the  morning  walk,  the  mist,  the  dew,  the 
sun,  are  as  faithful  as  they  can  be,  they  are  given 
with  the  eye  on  the  object,  but  there  the  merit  of 
the  work,  as  a  handling  of  nature,  stops ;  neither 
Greek  radiance  nor  Celtic  magic  is  added  ;  the  power 
of  these  is  not  what  gives  the  poem  in  question  its 
merit,  but  a  power  of  quite  another  kind,  a  power  of 
moral  and  spiritual  emotion.  But  the  power  of  Greek 
radiance  Goethe  could  give  to  his  handling  of  nature, 
and  nobly  too,  as  any  one  who  will  read  his  IFanderer, 
—the  poem  in  which  a  wanderer  falls  in  with  a 
peasant  woman  and  her  child  by  their  hut,  built  out 
of  the  ruins  of  a  temple  near  Cuma, — may  see.  Only 
the  power  of  natural  magic  Goethe  does  not,  I  think, 
give;  whereas  Keats  passes  at  will  from  the  Greek  power 
to  that  power  which  is,  as  I  say,  Celtic ;  from  his  : — 

"What  little  town,  by  river  or  seashore" — 

to  his  : — 

"White  hawthorn  and  the  pastoral  eglantine, 
Fast-fading  violets  cover'd  up  in  leaves  " — 

or  his  : — 

.     .     .     ' '  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  fairy  lands  forlorn  " — 

in  which  the  very  same  note  is  struck  as  in  those 
extracts  which  I  quoted  from  Celtic  romance,  and 
struck  with  authentic  and  unmistakable  power. 

Shakspeare,  in  handling  nature,  touches  this  Celtic 
note  so  exquisitely,  that  perhaps  one  is  inclined  to 
be  always  looking  for  the  Celtic  note  in  him,  and  not 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  127 

to  recognise  his  Greek  note  when  it  comes.  But  if 
one  attends  well  to  the  difference  between  the  two 
notes,  and  bears  in  mind,  to  guide  one,  such  things 
as  Virgil's  "  moss-grown  springs  and  grass  softer  than 
sleep  : " — 

"Muscosi  fontes  et  somno  mollior  herba" — 

as  his  charming  flower-gatherer,  who  : — 

"  Pallentes  violas  et  summa  papavera  carpens 
Narcissum  et  florem  jungit  bene  olentis  anethi  " — 

as  his  quinces  and  chestnuts  : — 

.     .     .     ' '  cana  legam  teuera  lanugine  mala 
Castaneasque  nuces  " 

then,  I  think,  we  shall  be  disposed  to  say  that  in 

Shakspeare's  : — 

' '  I  know  a  bank  where  the  wild  thyme  blows, 
Where  oxlips  and  the  nodding  violet  grows, 
Quite  over-canopied  with  luscious  woodbine, 
With  sweet  musk-roses  and  with  eglantine  " — 

it  is  mainly  a  Greek  note  which  is  struck.  Then, 
again  in  his  : — 

.     .     .     .      "  look  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold  !  " 

we  are  at  the  very  point  of  transition  from  the  Greek 
note  to  the  Celtic ;  there  is  the  Greek  clearness  and 
brightness,  with  the  Celtic  aerialness  and  magic  com- 
ing in.  Then  we  have  the  sheer,  inimitable  Celtic 
note  in  passages  like  this  : — 

"  Met  we  on  hill,  in  dale,  forest  or  mead, 
By  paved  fountain  or  by  rushy  brook, 
Or  in  the  beached  margent  of  the  sea  " — 


^28  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

or  this,  the  last  I  will  quote  : — 

"  The  moon  shines  bright.     In  such  a  night  as  this, 
When  the  sweet  wind  did  gently  kiss  the  trees, 
And  they  did  make  no  noise,  in  such  a  night 
Troilus,  methinks,  mounted  the  Trojan  walls — 

' '  in  such  a  night 

Did  Thisbe  fearfully  o'ertrip  the  dew — 

' '  in  such  a  night 

Stood  Dido,  with  a  willow  in  her  hand, 
Upon  the  wild  sea-banks,  and  waved  her  love 
To  come  again  to  Carthage." 

And  those  last  lines  of  all  are  so  drenched  and  in- 
toxicated with  the  fairy-dew  of  that  natural  magic 
which  is  our  theme,  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  end 
with  them. 

And  now,  with  the  pieces  of  evidence  in  our  hand, 
let  us  go  to  those  who  say  it  is  vain  to  look  for 
Celtic  elements  in  any  Englishman,  and  let  us  ask 
them,  first,  if  they  seize  what  we  mean  by  the  power 
of  natural  magic  in  Celtic  poetry ;  secondly,  if  Eng- 
lish poetry  does  not  eminently  exhibit  this  power ; 
and,  thirdly,  where  they  suppose  English  poetry  got 
it  from  1 

I  perceive  that  I  shall  be  accused  of  having  rather 
the  air,  in  what  I  have  said,  of  denying  this  and  that 
gift  to  the  Germans,  and  of  establishing  our  differ- 
ence from  them  a  little  ungraciously  and  at  their 
expense.  The  truth  is,  few  people  have  any  real 
care  to  analyse  closely  in  their  criticism ;  they  merely 
employ  criticism  as  a  means  for  heaping  all  praise  on 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  129 

what  they  like,  and  all  blame  on  what  they  dislike. 
Those  of  us  (and  they  are  many)  who  owe  a  great 
debt  of  gratitude  to  the  German  spirit  and  to  Ger- 
man literature,  do  not  like  to  be  told  of  any  powers 
being  lacking  there ;  we  are  like  the  young  ladies 
who  think  the  hero  of  their  novel  is  only  half  a  hero 
unless  he  has  all  perfections  united  in  him.  But 
nature  does  not  work,  either  in  heroes  or  races, 
according  to  the  young  ladies'  notion.  We  all  are 
what  we  are,  the  hero  and  the  great  nation  are  what 
they  are,  by  our  limitations  as  well  as  by  our  powers, 
by  lacking  something  as  well  as  by  possessing  some- 
thing. It  is  not  always  gain  to  possess  this  or  that 
gift,  or  loss  to  lack  this  or  that  gift.  Our  great,  our 
only  first-rate  body  of  contemporary  poetry  is  the 
German;  the  grand  business  of  modern  poetry, — a 
moral  interpretation,  from  an  independent  point  of 
view,  of  man  and  the  world, — it  is  only  German 
poetry,  Goethe's  poetry,  that  has,  since  the  Greeks, 
made  much  way  with.  Campbell's  power  of  style, 
and  the  natural  magic  of  Keats  and  Wordsworth, 
and  Byron's  Titanic  personality,  may  be  wanting  to 
this  poetry ;  but  see  what  it  has  accomplished  with- 
out them  !  How  much  more  than  Campbell  with  his 
power  of  style,  and  Keats  and  Wordsworth  with  their 
natural  magic,  and  Byron  with  his  Titanic  personality ! 
Why,  for  the  immense  serious  task  it  had  to  perform, 
the  steadiness  of  German  poetry,  its  going  near  the 
ground,  its  patient  fidelity  to  nature,  its  using  great 
plainness  of  speech,  poetical  drawbacks  in  one  point 
of  view,  were  safeguards  and  helps  in  another.  The 
VOL.  II.  K 


130  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

plainness  and  earnestness  of  the  two  lines  I  have 
already  quoted  from  Goethe  : — 

"Es  bildet  ein  Talent  sicli  in  der  Stille, 
Sich  ein  Character  in  dem  Strom  der  Welt " — 

compared  with  the  play  and  power  of  Shakspeare's 
style  or  Dante's,  suggest  at  once  the  difference  be- 
tween Goethe's  task  and  theirs,  and  the  fitness  of  the 
faithful  laborious  German  spirit  for  its  own  task. 
Dante's  task  was  to  set  forth  the  lesson  of  the  world 
from  the  point  of  view  of  mediaeval  Catholicism ;  the 
basis  of  spiritual  life  was  given,  Dante  had  not  to 
make  this  anew.  Shakspeare's  task  was  to  set  forth 
the  spectacle  of  the  world  when  man's  spirit  re-awoke 
to  the  possession  of  the  world  at  the  Renaissance. 
The  spectacle  of  human  life,  left  to  bear  its  own 
significance  and  tell  its  own  story,  but  shown  in  all 
its  fulness,  variety,  and  power,  is  at  that  moment  the 
great  matter;  but,  if  we  are  to  press  deeper,  the 
basis  of  spiritual  life  is  still  at  that  time  the  tradi- 
tional religion,  reformed  or  unreformed,  of  Christen- 
dom, and  Shakspeare  has  not  to  supply  a  new  basis. 
But  when  Goethe  came,  Europe  had  lost  her  basis  of 
spiritual  life  ;  she  had  to  find  it  again ;  Goethe's  task 
Avas, — the  inevitable  task  for  the  modern  poet  hence- 
forth is, — as  it  was  for  the  Greek  poet  in  the  days  of 
Pericles,  not  to  preach  a  sublime  sermon  on  a  given 
text  like  Dante,  not  to  exhibit  all  the  kingdoms  of 
human  life  and  the  glory  of  them  like  Shakspeare, 
but  to  interpret  human  life  afresh,  and  to  supply  a 
new  spiritual  basis  to  it.  This  is  not  only  a  work  for 
style,   eloquence,   charm,   poetry ;   it  is  a   work  for 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  131 

science  ;  and  the  scientific,  serious  German  spirit,  not 
carried  away  by  this  and  that  intoxication  of  ear,  and 
eye,  and  self-will,  has  peculiar  aptitudes  for  it. 

We,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not  necessarily  gain  by 
the  commixture  of  elements  in  us ;  we  have  seen  how 
the  clashing  of  natures  in  us  hampers  and  embarrasses 
our  behaviour;  we  might  very  likely  be  more  at- 
tractive, we  might  very  likely  be  more  successful, 
if  we  were  all  of  a  piece.  Our  want  of  sureness  of 
taste,  our  eccentricity,  come  in  great  measure,  no 
doubt,  from  our  not  being  all  of  a  piece,  from  our 
having  no  fixed,  fatal,  spiritual  centre  of  gravity. 
The  Rue  de  Eivoli  is  one  thing,  and  Nuremberg  is 
another,  and  Stonehenge  is  another;  but  we  have  a 
turn  for  all  three,  and  lump  them  all  up  together. 
Mr.  Tom  Taylor's  translations  from  Breton  poetry 
offer  a  good  example  of  this  mixing;  he  has  a  genuine 
feeling  for  these  Celtic  matters,  and  often,  as  in  the  Evil 
Tribute  of  Nomenoe,  or  in  Lord  Nairn  and  the  Fairy,  he 
is,  both  in  movement  and  expression,  true  and  appro- 
priate ;  but  he  has  a  sort  of  Teutonism  and  Latinism 
in  him  too,  and  so  he  cannot  forbear  mixing  with  his 
Celtic  strain  such  disparates  as  : — 

"'Twas  mirk,  mirk  night,  and  the  water  bright 
Troubled  and  drumlie  flowed  " — 

which  is  evidently  Lowland-Scotchy ;  or  as  : — 

"  Foregad,  but  thou'rt  an  artful  hand  ! " 

which  is  English-stagey ;  or  as  : — 

"To  Gradlon's  daughter,  bright  of  blee, 
Her  lover  he  whispered  tenderly — 
Bethink  thee,  sweet  Dahut !  the  key  /' 


132  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

which  is  Anacreontic  in  the  manner  of  Tom  Moore. 
Yes,  it  is  not  a  sheer  advantage  to  have  several  strings 
to  one's  bow !  if  we  had  been  all  German,  we  might 
have  had  the  science  of  Germany ;  if  we  had  been  all 
Celtic,  we  might  have  been  popular  and  agreeable ;  if 
we  had  been  all  Latinised,  we  might  have  governed 
Ireland  as  the  French  govern  Alsace,  without  getting 
ourselves  detested.  But  now  we  have  Germanism 
enough  to  make  us  Philistines,  and  Normanism 
enough  to  make  us  imperious,  and  Celtism  enough 
to  make  us  self-conscious  and  awkward ;  but  German 
fidelity  to  Nature,  and  Latin  precision  and  clear  rea- 
son, and  Celtic  quick-wittedness  and  spirituality,  we 
fall  short  of.  Nay,  perhaps,  if  we  are  doomed  to 
perish  (Heaven  avert  the  omen  !),  we  shall  perish  by 
our  Celtism,  by  our  self-will  and  want  of  patience 
with  ideas,  our  inability  to  see  the  way  the  world  is 
going ;  and  yet  those  very  Celts,  by  our  affinity  with 
whom  we  are  perishing,  will  be  hating  and  upbraiding 
us  all  the  time. 

This  is  a  somewhat  unpleasant  view  to  take  of  the 
matter ;  but  if  it  is  true,  its  being  unpleasant  does  not 
make  it  any  less  true,  and  we  are  always  the  better 
for  seeing  the  truth.  What  we  here  see  is  not  the 
whole  truth,  however.  So  long  as  this  mixed  consti- 
tution of  our  nature  possesses  us,  we  pay  it  tribute 
and  serve  it ;  so  soon  as  we  possess  it,  it  pays  us 
tribute  and  serves  us.  So  long  as  we  are  blindly  and 
ignorantly  rolled  about  by  the  forces  of  our  nature, 
their  contradiction  baffles  us  and  lames  us ;  so  soon 
as  we  have  clearly  discerned  what  they  are,  and  begun 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  133 

to  apply  to  them  a  law  of  measure,  control,  and  guid- 
ance, they  may  be  made  to  work  for  our  good  and  to 
carry  us  forward.  Then  we  may  have  the  good  of 
our  German  part,  the  good  of  our  Latin  part,  the 
good  of  our  Celtic  part;  and  instead  of  one  part 
clashing  with  the  other,  we  may  bring  it  in  to  continue 
and  perfect  the  other,  when  the  other  has  given  us 
all  the  good  it  can  yield,  and  by  being  pressed  further, 
could  only  give  us  its  faulty  excess.  Then  we  may 
use  the  German  faithfulness  to  Nature  to  give  us 
science,  and  to  free  us  from  insolence  and  self-will ; 
we  may  use  the  Celtic  quickness  of  perception  to  give 
us  delicacy,  and  to  free  us  from  hardness  and  Philis- 
tinism ;  we  may  use  the  Latin  decisiveness  to  give  us 
strenuous  clear  method,  and  to  free  us  from  fumbling 
and  idling.  Already,  in  their  untrained  state,  these 
elements  give  signs,  in  our  life  and  literature,  of  their 
being  present  in  us,  and  a  kind  of  prophecy  of  what 
they  could  do  for  us  if  they  were  properly  observed, 
trained,  and  applied.  But  this  they  have  not  yet  been ; 
we  ride  one  force  of  our  nature  to  death ;  we  will  be 
nothing  but  Anglo-Saxons  in  the  Old  World  or  in  the 
New ;  and  when  our  race  has  built  Bold  Street,  Liver- 
pool, and  pronounced  it  very  good,  it  hurries  across 
the  Atlantic,  and  builds  Nashville,  and  Jacksonville, 
and  Milledgeville,  and  thinks  it  is  fulfilling  the  designs 
of  Providence  in  an  incomparable  manner.  But  true 
Anglo-Saxons,  simply  and  sincerely  rooted  in  the 
German  nature,  we  are  not  and  cannot  be;  all  we  have 
accomplished  by  our  onesidedness  is  to  blur  and  con- 
fuse the  natural  basis  in  ourselves  altogether,  and  to 


134  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

become  something  eccentric,  unattractive,  and  inhar- 
monious. 

A  man  of  exquisite  intelligence  and  charming 
character,  the  late  Mr.  Cobden,  used  to  fancy  that  a 
better  acquaintance  with  the  United  States  was  the 
graDd  panacea  for  us ;  and  once  in  a  speech  he  be- 
wailed the  inattention  of  our  seats  of  learning  to 
them,  and  seemed  to  think  that  if  our  ingenuous 
youth  at  Oxford  were  taught  a  little  less  about  the 
Ilissus,  and  a  little  more  about  Chicago,  we  should  all 
be  the  better  for  it.  Chicago  has  its  claims  upon  us, 
no  doubt ;  but  it  is  evident  that  from  the  point  of 
view  to  which  I  have  been  leading,  a  stimulation  of 
our  Anglo-Saxonism,  such  as  is  intended  by  Mr.  Cob- 
den's  proposal,  does  not  appear  the  thing  most  need- 
ful for  us ;  seeing  our  American  brothers  themselves 
have  rather,  like  us,  to  try  and  moderate  the  flame  of 
Anglo-Saxonism  in  their  own  breasts,  than  to  ask  us 
to  clap  the  bellows  to  it  in  ours.  So  I  am  inclined 
to  beseech  Oxford,  instead  of  expiating  her  over- 
addiction  to  the  Ilissus  by  lectures  on  Chicago,  to  give 
us  an  expounder  for  a  still  more  remote-looking  object 
than  the  Ilissus, — the  Celtic  languages  and  literature. 
And  yet  why  should  I  call  it  remote  ?  if,  as  I  have 
been  labouring  to  show,  in  the  spiritual  frame  of  us 
English  ourselves,  a  Celtic  fibre,  little  as  we  may  have 
ever  thought  of  tracing  it,  lives  and  works  Aliens  in 
speech,  in  religion,  in  blood  !  said  Lord  Lyndhurst ;  the 
philologists  have  set  him  right  about  the  speech,  the 
physiologists  about  the  blood  ;  and  perhaps,  taking 
religion  in  the  wide  but  true  sense  of  our  whole  spiri- 


CELTIC  LITERATURE.  135 

tual  activity,  those  who  have  followed  what  I  have 
been  saying  here  will  think  that  the  Celt  is  not  so 
wholly  alien  to  us  in  religion.  But,  at  any  rate,  let 
us  consider  that  of  the  shrunken  and  diminished  re- 
mains of  this  great  primitive  race,  all,  with  one  insig- 
nificant exception,  belongs  to  the  English  empire; 
only  Brittany  is  not  ours ;  we  have  Ireland,  the  Scotch 
Highlands,  Wales,  the  Isle  of  Man,  Cornwall.  They 
are  a  part  of  ourselves,  we  are  deeply  interested  in 
knowing  them,  they  are  deeply  interested  in  being 
known  by  us  ;  and  yet  in  the  great  and  rich  univer- 
sities of  this  great  and  rich  country  there  is  no  chair 
of  Celtic,  there  is  no  study  or  teaching  of  Celtic  mat- 
ters ;  those  who  want  them  must  go  abroad  for  them. 
It  is  neither  right  nor  reasonable  that  this  should  be 
be  so.  Ireland  has  had  in  the  last  half  century  a  band 
of  Celtic  students, — a  band  with  which  death,  alas  ! 
has  of  late  been  busy,- — from  whence  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge might  have  taken  an  admirable  professor  of 
Celtic ;  and  with  the  authority  of  a  university  chair, 
a  great  Celtic  scholar,  on  a  subject  little  known,  and 
where  all  would  have  readily  deferred  to  him,  might 
have  by  this  time  doubled  our  facilities  for  knowing 
the  Celt,  by  procuring  for  this  country  Celtic  docu- 
ments which  were  inaccessible  here,  and  preventing 
the  dispersion  of  others  which  were  accessible.  It  is 
not  much  that  the  English  Government  does  for  science 
or  literature ;  but  if  Eugene  O'Curry,  from  a  chair  of 
Celtic  at  Oxford,  had  appealed  to  the  Government  to 
get  him  copies  or  the  originals  of  the  Celtic  treasures 
in  the  Burgundian   Library  at  Brussels,   or  in  the 


136  ON  THE  STUDY  OF 

library  of  St.  Isidore's  College  at  Eome,  even  the 
English  Government  could  not  well  have  refused  him. 
The  invaluable  Irish  manuscripts  in  the  Stowe  Library 
the  late  Sir  Eobert  Peel  proposed,  in  1849,  to  buy 
for  the  British  Museum ;  Lord  Macaulay,  one  of  the 
trustees  of  the  Museum,  declared,  with  the  confident 
shallowness  which  makes  him  so  admired  by  public 
speakers  and  leading-article  writers,  and  so  intolerable 
to  all  searchers  for  truth,  that  he  saw  nothing  in  the 
whole  collection  worth  purchasing  for  the  Museum, 
except  the  correspondence  of  Lord  Melville  on  the 
American  war.  That  is  to  say,  this  correspondence 
of  Lord  Melville's  was  the  only  thing  in  the  collec- 
tion about  which  Lord  Macaulay  himself  knew  or 
cared.  Perhaps  an  Oxford  or  Cambridge  professor 
of  Celtic  might  have  been  allowed  to  make  his  voice 
heard,  on  a  matter  of  Celtic  manuscripts,  even  against 
Lord  Macaulay.  The  manuscripts  were  bought  by 
Lord  Ashburnham,  who  keeps  them  shut  up,  and  will 
let  no  one  consult  them  (at  least  up  to  the  date  when 
O'Curry  published  his  Lectures  he  did  so)  "  for  fear 
an  actual  acquaintance  with  their  contents  should 
decrease  their  value  as  matter  of  curiosity  at  some 
future  transfer  or  sale."  Who  knows  1  Perhaps  an 
Oxford  professor  of  Celtic  might  have  touched  the 
flinty  heart  of  Lord  Ashburnham. 

At  this  moment,  when  the  narrow  Philistinism, 
which  has  long  had  things  its  own  way  in  England, 
is  showing  its  natural  fruits,  and  we  are  beginning  to 
feel  ashamed,  and  uneasy,  and  alarmed  at  it ;  now, 
when  we  are  becoming  aware  that  we  have  sacrificed 


CELTIC  LITEEATURE.  137 

to  Philistinism  culture,  and  insight,  and  dignity,  and 
acceptance,  and  weight  among  the  nations,  and  hold 
on  events  that  deeply  concern  us,  and  control  of  the 
future,  and  yet  that  it  cannot  even  give  us  the  fool's 
paradise  it  promised  us,  hut  is  apt  to  break  down,  and 
to  leave  us  with  Mr.  Roebuck's  and  Mr.  Lowe's  lauda- 
tions of  our  matchless  happiness,  and  the  largest  cir- 
culation in  the  world  assured  to  the  Daily  Telegraph, 
for  our  only  comfort ;  at  such  a  moment  it  needs  some 
moderation  not  to  be  attacking  Philistinism  by  storm, 
but  to  mine  it  through  such  gradual  means  as  the  slow 
approaches  of  culture,  and  the  introduction  of  chairs 
of  Celtic.  But  the  hard  unintelligence,  which  is  just 
now  our  bane,  cannot  be  conquered  by  storm ;  it 
must  be  suppled  and  reduced  by  culture,  by  a  growth 
in  the  variety,  fulness,  and  sweetness  of  our  spiritual 
life ;  and  this  end  can  only  be  reached  by  studying 
things  that  are  outside  of  ourselves,  and  by  studying 
them  disinterestedly.  Let  us  reunite  ourselves  with 
our  better  mind  and  with  the  world  through  science ; 
and  let  it  be  one  of  our  angelic  revenges  on  the  Phil- 
istines, who  among  their  other  sins  are  the  guilty 
authors  of  Fenianism,  to  found  at  Oxford  a  chair  of 
Celtic,  and  to  send,  through  the  gentle  ministration 
of  science,  a  message  of  peace  to  Ireland. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

.    .    .    .    Nunquamne  reponam? 


It  has  more  than  once  been  suggested  to  me  that  I 
should  translate  Homer.  That  is  a  task  for  which 
I  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  courage;  but  the 
suggestion  led  me  to  regard  yet  more  closely  a  poet 
whom  I  had  already  long  studied,  and  for  one  or  two 
years  the  works  of  Homer  were  seldom  out  of  my 
hands.  The  study  of  classical  literature  is  probably 
on  the  decline ;  but,  whatever  may  be  the  fate  of 
this  study  in  general,  it  is  certain  that,  as  instruc- 
tion spreads  and  the  number  of  readers  increases, 
attention  will  be  more  and  more  directed  to  the 
poetry  of  Homer,  not  indeed  as  part  of  a  classical 
course,  but  as  the  most  important  poetical  monu- 
ment existing.  Even  within  the  last  ten  years  two 
fresh  translations  of  the  Iliad  have  appeared  in 
England  :  one  by  a  man  of  great  ability  and  genuine 
learning,  Professor  Newman ;  the  other  by  Mr. 
Wright,  the  conscientious  and  painstaking  translator 


142  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

of  Dante.  It  may  safely  be  asserted  that  neither 
of  these  works  will  take  rank  as  the  standard  trans- 
lation of  Homer ;  that  the  task  of  rendering  him 
will  still  be  attempted  by  other  translators.  It 
may  perhaps  be  possible  to  render  to  these  some 
service,  to  save  them  some  loss  of  labour,  by  pointing 
out  rocks  on  which  their  predecessors  have  split, 
and  the  right  objects  on  which  a  translator  of  Homer 
should  fix  his  attention. 

It  is  disputed  what  aim  a  translator  should  propose 
to  himself  in  dealing  with  his  original.  Even  this 
preliminary  is  not  yet  settled.  On  one  side  it  is 
said  that  the  translation  ought  to  be  such  "that 
the  reader  should,  if  possible,  forget  that  it  is  a 
translation  at  all,  and  be  lulled  into  the  illusion 
that  he  is  reading  an  original  work, — something 
original"  (if  the  translation  be  in  English),  "from 
an  English  hand."  The  real  original  is  in  this  case, 
it  is  said,  "  taken  as  a  basis  on  which  to  rear  a  poem 
that  shall  affect  our  countrymen  as  the  original  may 
be  conceived  to  have  affected  its  natural  hearers." 
On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Newman,  who  states  the 
foregoing  doctrine  only  to  condemn  it,  declares 
that  he  "  aims  at  precisely  the  opposite :  to  retain 
every  peculiarity  of  the  original,  so  far  as  he  is  able, 
with  the  greater  care  the  more  foreign  it  may  happen  to 
be;"  so  that  it  may  "never  be  forgotten  that  he  is 
imitating,  and  imitating  in  a  different  material."  The 
translator's  "first  duty,"  says  Mr.  Newman,  "is  a 
historical  one,  to  be  faithful."  Probably  both  sides 
would  agree  that  the  translator's  "first  duty  is  to 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  143 

be   faithful ; "    but   the    question    at    issue   between 
them  is,  in  what  faithfulness  consists. 

My  one  object  is  to  give  practical  advice  to  a 
translator ;  and  I  shall  not  the  least  concern  myself 
with  theories  of  translation  as  such.  But  I  advise 
the  translator  not  to  try  "  to  rear  on  the  basis  of  the 
Iliad,  a  poem  that  shall  affect  our  countrymen  as  the 
original  may  be  conceived  to  have  affected  its  natural 
hearers ; "  and  for  this  simple  reason,  that  we  cannot 
possibly  tell  how  the  Iliad  "affected  its  natural  hearers." 
It  is  probably  meant  merely  that  he  should  try  to 
affect  Englishmen  powerfully,  as  Homer  affected 
Greeks  powerfully ;  but  this  direction  is  not  enough, 
and  can  give  no  real  guidance.  For  all  great  poets 
affect  their  hearers  powerfully,  but  the  effect  of  one 
poet  is  one  thing,  that  of  another  poet  another  thing : 
it  is  our  translator's  business  to  reproduce  the  effect 
of  Homer,  and  the  most  powerful  emotion  of  the 
unlearned  English  reader  can  never  assure  him 
whether  he  has  reproduced  this,  or  whether  he  has 
produced  something  else.  So,  again,  he  may  follow 
Mr.  Newman's  directions,  he  may  try  to  be  "  faith- 
ful," he  may  "retain  every  peculiarity  of  his  ori- 
ginal;" but  who  is  to  assure  him,  who  is  to  assure 
Mr.  Newman  himself,  that,  when  he  has  done  this, 
he  has  done  that  for  which  Mr.  Newman  enjoins 
'Jiis  to  be  done,  "  adhered  closely  to  Homer's  manner 
and  habit  of  thought'"?  Evidently  the  translator 
needs  some  more  practical  directions  than  these.  No 
one  can  tell  him  how  Homer  affected  the  Greeks ; 
but  there  are  those  who  can  tell  him  how  Homer 


144  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

affects  them.  These  are  scholars ;  who  possess,  at 
the  same  time  with  knowledge  of  Greek,  adequate 
poetical  taste  and  feeling.  No  translation  will  seem 
to  them  of  much  worth  compared  with  the  original ; 
but  they  alone  can  say  whether  the  translation  pro- 
duces more  or  less  the  same  effect  upon  them  as  the 
original.  They  are  the  only  competent  tribunal  in 
this  matter  :  the  Greeks  are  dead ;  the  unlearned 
Englishman  has  not  the  data  for  judging;  and  no 
man  can  safely  confide  in  his  own  single  judgment 
of  his  own  work.  Let  not  the  translator,  then, 
trust  to  his  notions  of  what  the  ancient  Greeks 
would  have  thought  of  him;  he  will  lose  himself 
in  the  vague.  Let  him  not  trust  to  what  the  ordi- 
nary English  reader  thinks  of  him ;  he  will  be  taking 
the  blind  for  his  guide.  Let  him  not  trust  to  his 
own  judgment  of  his  own  work ;  he  may  be  misled 
by  individual  caprices.  Let  him  ask  how  his  work 
affects  those  who  both  know  Greek  and  can  appre- 
ciate poetry;  whether  to  read  it  gives  the  Provost 
of  Eton,  or  Professor  Thompson  at  Cambridge,  or 
Professor  Jowett  here  in  Oxford,  at  all  the  same 
feeling  which  to  read  the  original  gives  them.  I 
consider  that  when  Bentley  said  of  Pope's  transla- 
tion, "  It  was  a  pretty  poem,  but  must  not  be  called 
Homer,"  the  work,  in  spite  of  all  its  power  and 
attractiveness,  was  judged. 

'12s  o.v  o  fypovijxos  oplcreiev, — "  as  the  judicious 
would  determine," — that  is  a  test  to  which  every 
one  professes  himself  willing  to  submit  his  works. 
Unhappily,  in  most  cases,  no  two  persons  agree  as 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  145 

to  who  "  the  judicious "  are.  In  the  present  case, 
the  ambiguity  is  removed  :  I  suppose  the  translator 
at  one  with  me  as  to  the  tribunal  to  which  alone  he 
should  look  for  judgment ;  and  he  has  thus  obtained 
a  practical  test  by  which  to  estimate  the  real  success 
of  his  work.  How  is  he  to  proceed,  in  order  that 
his  work,  tried  by  this  test,  may  be  found  most 
successful  1 

First  of  all,  there  are  certain  negative  counsels 
which  I  will  give  him.  Homer  has  occupied  men's 
minds  so  much,  such  a  literature  has  arisen  about 
him,  that  every  one  who  approaches  him  should 
resolve  strictly  to  limit  himself  to  that  which  may 
directly  serve  the  object  for  which  he  approaches 
him.  I  advise  the  translator  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  questions,  whether  Homer  ever  existed ; 
whether  the  poet  of  the  Iliad  be  one  or  many ; 
whether  the  Iliad  be  one  poem  or  an  Achilleis  and 
an  Iliad  stuck  together ;  whether  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  Atonement  is  shadowed  forth  in  the 
Homeric  mythology;  whether  the  Goddess  Latona 
in  any  way  prefigures  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  so  on. 
These  are  questions  which  have  been  discussed  with 
learning,  with  ingenuity,  nay,  with  genius ;  but  they 
have  two  inconveniences, — one  general  for  all  who 
approach  them,  one  particular  for  the  translator. 
The  general  inconvenience  is  that  there  really  exist 
no  data  for  determining  them.  The  particular  in- 
convenience is  that  their  solution  by  the  translator, 
even  were  it  possible,  could  be  of  no  benefit  to  his 
translation. 

VOL.  II.  L 


146  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

I  advise  him,  again,  not  to  trouble  himself  with 
constructing  a  special  vocabulary  for  his  use  in  trans- 
lation ;  with  excluding  a  certain  class  of  English 
words,  and  with  confining  himself  to  another  class,  in 
obedience  to  any  theory  about  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  Homer's  style.  Mr.  Newman  says  that  "the 
entire  dialect  of  Homer  being  essentially  archaic,  that 
of  a  translator  ought  to  be  as  much  Saxo-Norman  as 
possible,  and  owe  as  little  as  possible  to  the  elements 
thrown  into  our  language  by  classical  learning."  Mr. 
Newman  is  unfortunate  in  the  observance  of  his  own 
theory  ;  for  I  continually  find  in  his  translation  words 
of  Latin  origin,  which  seem  to  me  quite  alien  to  the 
simplicity  of  Homer,  — "responsive,"  for  instance, 
which  is  a  favourite  word  of  Mr.  Newman,  to  repre- 
sent the  Homeric  a/^et^o/ievos  : 

"  Great  Hector  of  the  motley  helm  thus  spake  to  her  responsive. 
"  But  thus  responsively  to  him  spake  god-like  Alexander." 

And  the  word  "  celestial,"  again,  in  the  grand  address 

of  Zeus  to  the  horses  of  Achilles, 

"  You,  who  are  born  celestial,  from  Eld  and  Death  exempted  !  " 

seems  to  me  in  that  place  exactly  to  jar  upon  the 
feeling  as  too  bookish.  But,  apart  from  the  question 
of  Mr.  Newman's  fidelity  to  his  own  theory,  such  a 
theory  seems  to  me  both  dangerous  for  a  translator 
and  false  in  itself.  Dangerous  for  a  translator  ;  be- 
cause, wherever  one  finds  such  a  theory  announced 
(and  one  finds  it  pretty  often),  it  is  generally  followed 
by  an  explosion  of  pedantry ;  and  pedantry  is  of  all 
things  in  the  world  the  most  un-Homeric.     False  in 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  147 

itself ;  because,  in  fact,  we  owe  to  the  Latin  element 
in  our  language  most  of  that  very  rapidity  and  clear 
decisiveness  by  which  it  is  contradistinguished  from 
the  German,  and  in  sympathy  with  the  languages  of 
Greece  and  Kome  :  so  that  to  limit  an  English  trans- 
lator of  Homer  to  words  of  Saxon  origin  is  to  deprive 
him  of  one  of  his  special  advantages  for  translating 
Homer.  In  Voss's  well-known  translation  of  Homer, 
it  is  precisely  the  qualities  of  his  German  language 
itself,  something  heavy  and  trailing  both  in  the  struc- 
ture of  its  sentences  and  in  the  words  of  which  it  is 
composed,  which  prevent  his  translation,  in  spite  of 
the  hexameters,  in  spite  of  the  fidelity,  from  creating 
in  us  the  impression  created  by  the  Greek.  Mr. 
Newman's  prescription,  if  followed,  would  just  strip 
the  English  translator  of  the  advantage  which  he  has 
over  Voss. 

The  frame  of  mind  in  which  we  approach  an  author 
influences  our  correctness  of  appreciation  of  him  ;  and 
Homer  should  be  approached  by  a  translator  in  the 
simplest  frame  of  mind  possible.  Modern  sentiment 
tries  to  make  the  ancient  not  less  than  the  modern 
world  its  own  ;  but  against  modern  sentiment  in  its 
applications  to  Homer  the  translator,  if  he  would  feel 
Homer  truly — and  unless  he  feels  him  truly,  how  can 
he  render  him  truly  ?— cannot  be  too  much  on  his 
guard.  For  example  :  the  writer  of  an  interesting 
article  on  English  translations  of  Homer,  in  the  last 
number  of  the  National  Review,  quotes,  I  see,  with 
admiration,  a  criticism  of  Mr.  Ruskin  on  the  use  of 
the  epithet  <f>vcri{oos}  "life-giving,"  in  that  beautiful 


148  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

passage  in  the  third  book  of  the  Iliad,  which  follows 
Helen's  mention  of  her  brothers  Castor  and  Pollux 
as  alive,  though  they  were  in  truth  dead  : 

(5s  <f>&TO  '  rovs  5'  ijSt]  Karexev  4'vff^oos  °"a 
kv  AaKedaifiovL  audi,  (f>i\rj  iv  TrarpiSi  yairj.1 

"  The  poet,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  has  to  speak  of  the 
earth  in  sadness  ;  but  he  will  not  let  that  sadness 
affect  or  change  his  thought  of  it.  No;  though 
Castor  and  Pollux  be  dead,  yet  the  earth  is  our 
mother  still, — fruitful,  life-giving."  This  is  a  just 
specimen  of  that  sort  of  application  of  modern  senti- 
ment to  the  ancients,  against  which  a  student,  who 
wishes  to  feel  the  ancients  truly,  cannot  too  resolutely 
defend  himself.  It  reminds  one,  as,  alas  !  so  much 
of  Mr.  Ruskin's  writing  reminds  one,  of  those  words 
of  the  most  delicate  of  living  critics  :  "  Comme  tout 
genre  de  composition  a  son  ecueil  particulier,  celui  du 
genre  romanesque,  c'est  le  faux."  The  reader  may  feel 
moved  as  he  reads  it ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  an  ex- 
ample of  "  le  faux  "  in  criticism  ;  it  is  false.  It  is  not 
true,  as  to  that  particular  passage,  that  Homer  called 
the  earth  (f>vo-i£oos,  because,  "  though  he  had  to  speak 
of  the  earth  in  sadness,  he  would  not  let  that  sadness 
change  or  affect  his  thought  of  it,"  but  consoled  him- 
self by  considering  that  "  the  earth  is  our  mother 
still, — fruitful,  life-giving."  It  is  not  true,  as  a 
matter  of  general  criticism,  that  this  kind  of  senti- 
mentality, eminently  modern,  inspires  Homer  at  all. 
"  From  Homer  and   Polygnotus  I  every  day  learn 

1  Iliad,  iii.  243. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  149 

more  clearly,"  says  Goethe,  "  that  in  our  life  here 
above  ground  we  have,  properly  speaking,  to  enact 
Hell : " l — if  the  student  must  absolutely  have  a  key- 
note to  the  Iliad,  let  him  take  this  of  Goethe,  and  see 
what  he  can  do  with  it ;  it  will  not,  at  any  rate,  like 
the  tender  pantheism  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  falsify  for  him 
the  whole  strain  of  Homer. 

These  are  negative  counsels  ;  I  come  to  the  posi- 
tive. "When  I  say,  the  translator  of  Homer  should 
above  all  be  penetrated  by  a  sense  of  four  qualities  of 
his  author  ; — that  he  is  eminently  rapid ;  that  he  is 
eminently  plain  and  direct,  both  in  the  evolution  of 
his  thought  and  in  the  expression  of  it,  that  is,  both 
in  his  syntax  and  in  his  words ;  that  he  is  eminently 
plain  and  direct  in  the  substance  of  his  thought,  that 
is,  in  his  matter  and  ideas  ;  and,  finally  that  he  is 
eminently  noble  ; — I  probably  seem  to  be  saying  what 
is  too  general  to  be  of  much  service  to  anybody.  Yet 
it  is  strictly  true  that,  for  want  of  duly  penetrating 
themselves  with  the  first -named  quality  of  Homer, 
his  rapidity,  Cowper  and  Mr.  Wright  have  failed  in 
rendering  him  ;  that,  for  want  of  duly  appreciating 
the  second-named  quality,  his  plainness  and  directness 
of  style  and  dictation,  Pope  and  Mr.  Sotheby  have 
failed  in  rendering  him  ;  that  for  want  of  appreciating 
the  third,  his  plainness  and  directness  of  ideas,  Chap- 
man has  failed  in  rendering  him;  while  for  want  of  ap- 
preciating the  fourth,  his  nobleness,  Mr.  Newman,  who 
has  clearly  seen  some  of  the  faults  of  his  predecessors, 
has  yet  failed  more  conspicuously  than  any  of  them. 

1  BrUfwechscl  zwischen  Schiller  uitd  Goctlte,  vi.  230. 


150  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

Coleridge  says,  in  his  strange  language,  speaking 
of  the  union  of  the  human  soul  with  the  divine 
essence,  that  this  takes  place 

"  Whene'er  the  mist,  which  stands  'twixt  God  and  thee, 
Defecates  to  a  pure  transparency  ; " 

and  so,  too,  it  may  be  said  of  that  union  of  the  trans- 
lator with  his  original,  which  alone  can  produce  a 
good  translation,  that  it  takes  place  when  the  mist 
which  stands  between  them — the  mist  of  alien  modes 
of  thinking,  speaking,  and  feeling  on  the  translator's 
part — "  defecates  to  a  pure  transparency,"  and  dis- 
appears. But  between  Cowper  and  Homer — -(Mr. 
Wright  repeats  in  the  main  Cowper's  manner,  as  Mr. 
Sotheby  repeats  Pope's  manner,  and  neither  Mr. 
Wright's  translation  nor  Mr.  Sotheby's  has,  I  must 
be  forgiven  for  saying,  any  proper  reason  for  existing) 
— between  Cowper  and  Homer  there  is  interposed  the 
mist  of  Cowper's  elaborate  Miltonic  manner,  entirely 
alien  to  the  flowing  rapidity  of  Homer ;  between  Pope 
and  Homer  there  is  interposed  the  mist  of  Pope's 
literary  artificial  manner,  entirely  alien  to  the  plain 
naturalness  of  Homer's  manner;  between  Chapman 
and  Homer  there  is  interposed  the  mist  of  the  fanci- 
fulness  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  entirely  alien  to  the 
plain  directness  of  Homer's  thought  and  feeling ; 
while  between  Mr.  Newman  and  Homer  is  interposed 
a  cloud  of  more  than  Egyptian  thickness, — namely,  a 
manner,  in  Mr.  Newman's  version,  eminently  ignoble, 
while  Homer's  manner  is  eminently  noble. 

I  do  not  despair  of  making  all  these  propositions 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  151 

clear  to  a  student  who  approaches  Homer  with  a  free 
mind.  First,  Homer  is  eminently  rapid,  and  to  this 
rapidity  the  elaborate  movement  of  Miltonic  blank 
verse  is  alien.  The  reputation  of  Cowper,  that  most 
interesting  man  and  excellent  poet,  does  not  depend 
on  his  translation  of  Homer  ;  and  in  his  preface  to 
the  second  edition,  he  himself  tells  us  that  he  felt, — 
he  had  too  much  poetical  taste  not  to  feel,— on  re- 
turning to  his  own  version  after  six  or  seven  years, 
"more  dissatisfied  with  it  himself  than  the  most 
difficult  to  be  pleased  of  all  his  judges."  And  he  was 
dissatisfied  with  it  for  the  right  reason,  —  that  "it 
seemed  to  him  deficient  in  the  grace  of  ease."  Yet  he 
seems  to  have  originally  misconceived  the  manner  of 
Homer  so  much,  that  it  is  no  wonder  he  rendered 
him  amiss.  "  The  similitude  of  Milton's  manner  to 
that  of  Homer  is  such,"  he  says,  "  that  no  person 
familiar  with  both  can  read  either  without  being  re- 
minded of  the  other ;  and  it  is  in  those  breaks  and 
pauses  to  which  the  numbers  of  the  English  poet  are 
so  much  indebted,  both  for  their  dignity  and  variety, 
that  he  chiefly  copies  the  Grecian."  It  would  be 
more  true  to  say :  "  The  unlikeness  of  Milton's 
manner  to  that  of  Homer  is  such,  that  no  person 
familiar  with  both  can  read  either  without  being 
struck  with  his  difference  from  the  other ;  and  it  is 
in  his  breaks  and  pauses  that  the  English  poet  is 
most  unlike  the  Grecian." 

The  inversion  and  pregnant  conciseness  of  Milton 
or  Dante  are,  doubtless,  most  impressive  qualities  of 
style ;  but  they  are  the  very  opposites  of  the  direct- 


152  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

ness  and  flowingness  of  Homer,  which  he  keeps  alike 
in  passages  of  the  simplest  narrative,  and  in  those  of 
the  deepest  emotion.  Not  only,  for  example,  are 
these  lines  of  Cowper  un-Homeric  : — 

"  So  numerous  seemed  those  fires  the  banks  between 
Of  Xanthus,  blazing,  and  the  fleet  of  Greece 
In  prospect  all  of  Troy  ;  " 

where  the  position  of  the  word  "blazing"  gives  an 
entirely  un-Homeric  movement  to  this  simple  passage, 
describing  the  fires  of  the  Trojan  camp  outside  of 
Troy ;  but  the  following  lines,  in  that  very  highly- 
wrought  passage  where  the  horse  of  Achilles  answers 
his  master's  reproaches  for  having  left  Patroclus  on 
the  field  of  battle,  are  equally  un-Homeric  : — 

"  For  not  through  sloth  or  tardiness  on  us 
Aught  chargeable,  have  Ilium's  sons  thine  arms 
Stript  from  Patroclus'  shoulders ;  but  a  God 
Matchless  in  battle,  offspring  of  bright-haired 
Latona,  him  contending  in  the  van 
Slew,  for  the  glory  of  the  chief  of  Troy." 

Here  even  the  first  inversion,  "have  Ilium's  sons 
thine  arms  Stript  from  Patroclus'  shoulders,"  gives 
the  reader  a  sense  of  a  movement  not  Homeric ;  and 
the  second  inversion,  "  a  God  him  contending  in  the 
van  Slew,"  gives  this  sense  ten  times  stronger.  In- 
stead of  moving  on  without  check,  as  in  reading  the 
original,  the  reader  twice  finds  himself,  in  reading  the 
translation,  brought  up  and  checked.  Homer  moves 
with  the  same  simplicity  and  rapidity  in  the  highly- 
wrought  as  in  the  simple  passage. 

It  is  in  vain  that  Cowper  insists  on  his  fidelity : 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  153 

"  my  chief  boast  is  that  I  have  adhered  closely  to  my 

original :  " — "  the  matter  found  in  me,  whether  the 

reader  like  it  or  not,  is  found  also  in  Homer;  and 

the  matter  not  found  in  me,  how  much  soever  the 

reader  may  admire  it,  is  found  only  in  Mr.  Pope." 

To  suppose  that  it  is  fidelity  to  an  original  to  give  its 

matter,  unless  you  at  the  same  time  give  its  manner ; 

or,  rather,  to  suppose  that  you  can  really  give  its 

matter  at  all,  unless  you  can  give  its  manner,  is  just 

the  mistake  of  our  pre-Raphaelite  school  of  painters, 

who  do  not  understand  that  the  peculiar  effect  of 

nature  resides  in  the  whole  and  not  in  the  parts.     So 

the  peculiar  effect  of  a  poet  resides  in  his  manner  and 

movement,  not  in  his  words  taken  separately.     It  is 

well  known  how  conscientiously  literal  is  Cowper  in 

his  translation  of  Homer.     It  is  well   known   how 

extravagantly  free  is  Pope. 

"So  let  it  be! 
Portents  and  prodigies  are  lost  on  me  :  " 

that  is  Pope's  rendering  of  the  words, 

E&vde,  tI  fioi.  Oavarov  fxavreveai  ;  ovM  rl  ere  XPV'1 
' '  Xanthus,  why  prophesiest  thou  my  death  to  me  ?  thou  needest 
not  at  all  :  " — 

yet,  on  the  whole,  Pope's  translation  of  the  Iliad  is 
more  Homeric  than  Cowper' s,  for  it  is  more  rapid. 

Pope's  movement,  however,  though  rapid,  is  not 
of  the  same  kind  as  Homer's ;  and  here  I  come  to  the 
real  objection  to  rhyme  in  a  translation  of  Homer. 
It  is  commonly  said  that  rhyme  is  to  be  abandoned 
in  a  translation  of  Homer,  because  "  the  exigences  of 

1  Iliad,  xix.  420. 


154  ON  TEANSLATING  HOMER. 

rhyme,"  to  quote  Mr.  Newman,  "positively  forbid 
faithfulness ; "  because  "  a  just  translation  of  any 
ancient  poet  in  rhyme,"  to  quote  Cowper,  "is  im- 
possible." This,  however,  is  merely  an  accidental 
objection  to  rhyme.  If  this  were  all,  it  might  be 
supposed,  that  if  rhymes  were  more  abundant,  Homer 
could  be  adequately  translated  in  rhyme.  But  this 
is  not  so ;  there  is  a  deeper,  a  substantial  objection 
to  rhyme  in  a  translation  of  Homer.  It  is,  that 
rhyme  inevitably  tends  to  pair  lines  which  in  the 
original  are  independent,  and  thus  the  movement  of 
the  poem  is  changed.  In  these  lines  of  Chapman,  for 
instance,  from  Sarpedon's  speech  to  Glaucus,  in  the 
twelfth  book  of  the  Iliad : — 

' '  0  friend,  if  keeping  back 
Would  keep  back  age  from  us,  and  deatb,  and  that  we  might 

not  wrack 
In  this  life's  human  sea  at  all,  but  that  deferring  now 
We  shunned  death  ever, — nor  would  I  half  this  vain  va  or  show, 
Nor  glorify  a  folly  so,  to  wish  thee  to  advance  ; 
But  since  we  must  go,  though  not  here,  and  that  besides  the 

chance 
Proposed  now,  there  are  infinite  fates,"  etc. 

Here  the  necessity  of  making  the  line, 

"  Nor  glorify  a  folly  so,  to  wish  thee  to  advance," 

rhyme  with  the  line  which  follows  it,  entirely  changes 
and  spoils  the  movement  of  the  passage. 

ovre  Kev  avros  evl  irpJoroicn  fj.axoilJ.'riv, 
ovre  Ke  ae  ffriWoifu  Ju.ax7F  e's  Kv^iaveipav1 
"Neither  would  I  myself  go  forth  to  fight  with  the  foremost, 
Nor  would  I  urge  thee  on  to  enter  the  glorious  battle," 

1  Iliad,  xii.  324. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  155 

says  Homer ;  there  he  stops,  and  begins  an  opposed 
movement : 

vvv  5' — e/j.wrjs  yap  Kjjpes  ecpeuTcicnv  Oavaroio — 
"  But — for  a  thousand  fates  of  death  stand  close  to  us  always" — 

This  line,  in  which  Homer  wishes  to  go  away  with 
the  most  marked  rapidity  from  the  line  before,  Chap- 
man is  forced,  by  the  necessity  of  rhyming,  intimately 
to  connect  with  the  line  before. 

"  But  since  we  must  go,  though  not  here,  and  that  besides  the 
chance  " — 

The  moment  the  word  chance  strikes  our  ear,  we  are 
irresistibly  carried  back  to  advance  and  to  the  whole 
previous  line,  which,  according  to  Homer's  own  feel- 
ing, we  ought  to  have  left  behind  us  entirely,  and  to 
be  moving  farther  and  farther  away  from. 

Ehyme  certainly,  by  intensifying  antithesis,  can 
intensify  separation,  and  this  is  precisely  what  Pope 
does ;  but  this  balanced  rhetorical  antithesis,  though 
very  effective,  is  entirely  un-Homeric.  And  this  is 
what  I  mean  by  saying  that  Pope  fails  to  render 
Homer,  because  he  does  not  render  his  plainness  and 
directness  of  style  and  diction.  Where  Homer  marks 
separation  by  moving  away,  Pope  marks  it  by  anti- 
thesis. No  passage  could  show  this  better  than  the 
passage  I  have  just  quoted,  on  which  I  will  pause  for 
a  moment. 

Robert  Wood,  Avhose  Essay  on  the  Genius  of  Homer 
is  mentioned  by  Goethe  as  one  of  the  books  which 
fell  into  his  hands  when  his  powers  were  first  develop- 
ing themselves,  and  strongly  interested  him,  relates 


156  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

of  this  passage  a  striking  story.  He  says  that  in 
1762,  at  the  end  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  being 
then  Under-Secretary  of  State,  he  was  directed  to 
wait  upon  the  President  of  the  Council,  Lord  Gran- 
ville, a  few  days  before  he  died,  with  the  preliminary 
articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  "I  found  him,"  he 
continues,  "so  languid,  that  I  proposed  postponing 
my  business  for  another  time;  but  he  insisted  that 
I  should  stay,  saying,  it  could  not  prolong  his  life  to 
neglect  his  duty ;  and  repeating  the  following  passage 
out  of  Sarpedon's  speech,  he  dwelled  with  particular 
emphasis  on  the  third  line,  which  recalled  to  his  mind 
the  distinguishing  part  he  had  taken  in  public  affairs  :— 

u>  irinov,  d  fiei>  yap  irbXe/xov  irepl  rdvde  <pvy6vre, 

aiel  5rj  /MeWoi/xev  dy!]pw  t   d6avdrw  re 

Za<r€<r6',  oiJTe  ksv  airbs  ivl  irpdiToiai  /xaxoi/jLyjv,1 

oflre  Ke  <xk  <tt{X\oi/m  fJ-dxyv  is  Kvbidveipav ' 

vvv  5' — ?fj.TT7]s  yap  Hypes  icpearaviv  Oavdroio 

fivplai,  as  ovk  kari  (pvyeiv  fipbrov,  ovd'  viraXv^at — 

tofiev. 

His  Lordship  repeated  the  last  word  several  times 
with  a  calm  and  determinate  resignation ;  and,  after  a 
serious  pause  of  some  minutes,  he  desired  to  hear  the 
Treaty  read,  to  which  he  listened  with  great  atten- 
tion, and  recovered  spirits  enough  to  declare  the 
approbation  of  a  dying  statesman  (I  use  his  own 
words)  '  on  the  most  glorious  war,  and  most  honour- 
able peace,  this  nation  ever  saw.'"2 

1  These  are  the  words  on  which  Lord  Granville  "dwelled 
with  particular  emphasis." 

2  Robert  Wood,  Essay  on  the  Original  Genius  and  Writings 
of  Homer,  London,  1775,  p.  vii. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  157 

I  quote  this  story,  first,  because  it  is  interesting  as 
exhibiting  the  English  aristocracy  at  its  very  height 
of  culture,  lofty  spirit,  and  greatness,  towards  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  I  quote  it,  secondly, 
because  it  seems  to  me  to  illustrate  Goethe's  saying 
which  I  mentioned,  that  our  life,  in  Homer's  view  of 
it,  represents  a  conflict  and  a  hell ;  and  it  brings  out, 
too,  Avhat  there  is  tonic  and  fortifying  in  this  doctrine. 
I  quote  it,  lastly,  because  it  shows  that  the  passage 
is  just  one  of  those  in  translating  which  Pope  will  be 
at  his  best,  a  passage  of  strong  emotion  and  oratorical 
movement,  not  of  simple  narrative  or  description. 

Pope  translates  the  passage  thus : — 

"  Could  all  our  care  elude  the  gloomy  grave 
"Which  claims  no  less  the  fearful  than  the  brave, 
For  lust  of  fame  I  should  not  vainly  dare 
In  fighting  fields,  nor  urge  thy  soul  to  war  : 
But  since,  alas  !  ignoble  age  must  come, 
Disease,  and  death's  inexorable  doom  ; 
The  life  which  others  pay,  let  us  bestow, 
And  give  to  fame  what  we  to  nature  owe." 

Nothing  could  better  exhibit  Pope's  prodigious  talent, 
and  nothing,  too,  could  be  better  in  its  own  way. 
But,  as  Bentley  said,  "  You  must  not  call  it  Homer." 
One  feels  that  Homer's  thought  has  passed  through  a 
literary  and  rhetorical  crucible,  and  come  out  highly 
.intellectualised ;  come  out  in  a  form  which  strongly 
impresses  us,  indeed,  but  which  no  longer  impresses 
us  in  the  same  way  as  when  it  was  uttered  by  Homer. 
The  antithesis  of  the  last  two  lines — 

"The  life  which  others  pay,  let  us  bestow, 
And  give  to  fame  what  we  to  nature  owe  " — 


158  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

is  excellent,  and  is  just  suited  to  Pope's  heroic 
couplet;  but  neither  the  antithesis  itself,  nor  the 
couplet  which  conveys  it,  is  suited  to  the  feeling  or 
to  the  movement  of  the  Homeric  to/zev. 

A  literary  and  intellectualised  language  is,  how- 
ever, in  its  own  way  well  suited  to  grand  matters ;  and 
Pope,  with  a  language  of  this  kind  and  his  own  ad- 
mirable talent,  comes  off  well  enough  as  long  as  he 
has  passion,  or  oratory,  or  a  great  crisis  to  deal  with. 
Even  here,  as  I  have  been  pointing  out,  he  does  not 
render  Homer ;  but  he  and  his  style  are  in  themselves 
strong.  It  is  when  he  comes  to  level  passages,  pas- 
sages of  narrative  or  description,  that  he  and  his  style 
are  sorely  tried,  and  prove  themselves  weak.  A  per- 
fectly plain  direct  style  can  of  course  convey  the 
simplest  matter  as  naturally  as  the  grandest ;  indeed, 
it  must  be  harder  for  it,  one  would  say,  to  convey  a 
grand  matter  worthily  and  nobly,  than  to  convey  a 
common  matter,  as  alone  such  a  matter  should  be 
conveyed,  plainly  and  simply.  But  the  style  of 
Rasselas  is  incomparably  better  fitted  to  describe  a 
sage  philosophising  than  a  soldier  lighting  his  camp- 
fire.  The  style  of  Pope  is  not  the  style  of  Rasselas  ; 
but  it  is  equally  a  literary  style,  equally  unfitted  to 
describe  a  simple  matter  with  the  plain  naturalness  of 
Homer. 

Every  one  knows  the  passage  at  the  end  of  the 
eighth  book  of  the  Iliad,  where  the  fires  of  the  Trojan 
encampment  are  likened  to  the  stars.  It  is  very  far 
from  my  wish  to  hold  Pope  up  to  ridicule,  so  I  shall 
not  quote  the  commencement  of  the  passage,  which  in 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  159 

the  original  is  of  great  and  celebrated  beauty,  and 
in  translating  which  Pope  has  been  singularly  and 
notoriously  fortunate.  But  the  latter  part  of  the 
passage,  where  Homer  leaves  the  stars,  and  comes  to 
the  Trojan  fires,  treats  of  the  plainest,  most  matter-of- 
fact  subject  possible,  and  deals  with  this,  as  Homer 
always  deals  with  every  subject,  in  the  plainest  and 
most  straightforward  style.  "  So  many  in  number, 
between  the  ships  and  the  streams  of  Xanthus,  shone 
forth  in  front  of  Troy  the  fires  kindled  by  the  Trojans. 
There  were  kindled  a  thousand  fires  in  the  plain  ;  and 
by  each  one  there  sat  fifty  men  in  the  light  of  the 
blazing  fire.  And  the  horses,  munching  white  barley 
and  rye,  and  standing  by  the  chariots,  Avaited  for  the 
bright-throned  Morning. " 1 

In  Pope's  translation,  this  plain  story  becomes  the 
following : — 

' '  So  many  flames  before  proud  Ilion  blaze, 
And  brighten  glimmering  Xanthus  with  their  rays  ; 
The  long  reflections  of  the  distant  fires 
Gleam  on  the  walls,  and  tremble  on  the  spires. 
A  thousand  piles  the  dusky  horrors  gild, 
And  shoot  a  shady  lustre  o'er  the  field. 
Full  fifty  guards  each  flaming  pile  attend, 
AVhose  umbered  arms,  by  fits,  thick  flashes  send  ; 
Loud  neigh  the  coursers  o'er  their  heaps  of  corn, 
And  ardent  warriors  wait  the  rising  morn. " 

It  is  for  passages  of  this  sort,  which,  after  all,  form 
the  bulk  of  a  narrative  poem,  that  Pope's  style  is  so 
bad.  In  elevated  passages  he  is  powerful,  as  Homer 
is  powerful,  though  not  in   the  same  way ;  but   in 

1  Fliad,  viii.  5G0. 


160  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

plain  narrative,  where  Homer  is  still  power  and  delight- 
ful, Pope,  by  the  inherent  fault  of  his  style,  is  in- 
effective and  out  of  taste.  Wordsworth  says  some- 
where, that  wherever  Virgil  seems  to  have  composed 
"  with  his  eye  on  the  object,"  Dryden  fails  to  render 
him.  Homer  invariably  composes  "with  his  eye  on 
the  object,"  whether  the  object  be  a  moral  or  a 
material  one :  Pope  composes  with  his  eye  on  his 
style,  into  which  he  translates  his  object,  whatever 
it  is.  That,  therefore,  which  Homer  conveys  to  us 
immediately,  Pope  conveys  to  us  through  a  medium. 
He  aims  at  turning  Homer's  sentiments  pointedly  and 
rhetorically;  at  investing  Homer's  description  with 
ornament  and  dignity.  A  sentiment  may  be  changed 
by  being  put  into  a  pointed  and  oratorical  form,  yet 
may  still  be  very  effective  in  that  form ;  but  a  de- 
scription, the  moment  it  takes  its  eyes  off  that  which 
it  is  to  describe,  and  begins  to  think  of  ornamenting 
itself,  is  worthless. 

Therefore,  I  say,  the  translator  of  Homer  should 
penetrate  himself  with  a  sense  of  the  plainness  and 
directness  of  Homer's  style ;  of  the  simplicity  with 
which  Homer's  thought  is  evolved  and  expressed.  He 
has  Pope's  fate  before  his  eyes,  to  show  him  what  a 
divorce  may  be  created  even  between  the  most  gifted 
translator  and  Homer  by  an  artificial  evolution  of 
thought  and  a  literary  cast  of  style. 

Chapman's  style  is  not  artificial  and  literary  like 
Pope's,  nor  his  movement  elaborate  and  self-retarding 
like  the  Miltonic  movement  of  Cowper.  He  is  plain- 
spoken,  fresh,  vigorous,  and,  to  a  certain  degree,  rapid; 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  161 

and  all  these  are  Homeric  qualities.  I  cannot  say 
that  I  think  the  movement  of  his  fourteen-syllable 
line,  which  has  heen  so  much  commended,  Homeric ; 
but  on  this  point  I  shall  have  more  to  say  by  and 
by,  when  I  come  to  speak  of  Mr.  Newman's  metrical 
exploits.  But  it  is  not  distinctly  anti-Homeric,  like 
the  movement  of  Milton's  blank  verse  ;  and  it  has  a 
rapidity  of  its  own.  Chapman's  diction,  too,  is  gene- 
rally good,  that  is,  appropriate  to  Homer  ;  above  all, 
the  syntactical  character  of  his  style  is  appropriate. 
With  these  merits,  what  prevents  his  translation  from 
being  a  satisfactory  version  of  Homer  1  Is  it  merely 
the  want  of  literal  faithfulness  to  his  original,  imposed 
upon  him,  it  is  said,  by  the  exigences  of  rhyme? 
Has  this  celebrated  version,  which  has  so  many  ad- 
vantages, no  other  and  deeper  defect  than  that  ?  Its 
author  is  a  poet,  and  a  poet,  too,  of  the  Elizabethan 
age ;  the  golden  age  of  English  literature  as  it  is 
called,  and  on  the  whole  truly  called ;  for,  whatever 
be  the  defects  of  Elizabethan  literature  (and  they  are 
great),  we  have  no  development  of  our  literature  to 
compare  with  it  for  vigour  and  richness.  This  age, 
too,  showed  what  it  could  do  in  translating,  by  pro- 
ducing a  master-piece,  its  version  of  the  Bible. 

Chapman's  translation  has  often  been  praised  as 
eminently  Homeric.  Keats's  fine  sonnet  in  its  honour 
every  one  knows;  but  Keats  could  not  read  the 
original,  and  therefore  could  not  really  judge  the 
translation.  Coleridge,  in  praising  Chapman's  version, 
says  at  the  same  time,  "  It  will  give  you  small  idea 
of  Homer."     But  the  grave  authority  of  Mr.  Hallam 

VOL.  II.  M 


162  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

pronounces  this  translation  to  be  "  often  exceedingly 
Homeric ; "  and  its  latest  editor  boldly  declares  that 
by  what,  with  a  deplorable  style,  he  calls  "  his  own 
innative  Homeric  genius,"  Chapman  "has  thoroughly 
identified  himself  with  Homer;"  and  that  "we  pardon 
him  even  for  his  digressions,  for  they  are  such  as  we 
feel  Homer  himself  would  have  written." 

I  confess  that  I  can  never  read  twenty  lines  of 
Chapman's  version  without  recurring  to  Bentley's  cry, 
"  This  is  not  Homer  !  "  and  that  from  a  deeper  cause 
than  any  unfaithf ulness  occasioned  by  the  fetters  of 
rhyme. 

I  said  that  there  were  four  things  which  eminently 
distinguished  Homer,  and  with  a  sense  of  which 
Homer's  translator  should  penetrate  himself  as  fully 
as  possible.  One  of  these  four  things  was,  the  plain- 
ness and  directness  of  Homer's  ideas.  I  have  just 
been  speaking  of  the  plainness  and  directness  of  his 
style ;  but  the  plainness  and  directness  of  the  con- 
tents of  his  style,  of  his  ideas  themselves,  is  not  less 
remarkable.  But  as  eminently  as  Homer  is  plain,  so 
eminently  is  the  Elizabethan  literature  in  general, 
and  Chapman  in  particular,  fanciful.  Steeped  in 
humours  and  fantasticality  up  to  its  very  lips,  the 
Elizabethan  age,  newly  arrived  at  the  free  use  of  the 
human  faculties  after  their  long  term  of  bondage,  and 
delighting  to  exercise  them  freely,  suffers  from  its 
own  extravagance  in  this  first  exercise  of  them,  can 
hardly  bring  itself  to  see  an  object  quietly  or  to  de- 
scribe it  temperately.  Happily,  in  the  translation  of 
the  Bible,  the  sacred  character  of  their  original  in- 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  163 

spired  the  translators  with  such  respect  that  they  did 
not  dare  to  give  the  rein  to  their  own  fancies  in  dealing 
with  it.  But,  in  dealing  with  works  of  profane  litera- 
ture, in  dealing  with  poetical  works  above  all,  which 
highly  stimulated  them,  one  may  say  that  the  minds 
of  the  Elizabethan  translators  were  too  active ;  that 
they  could  not  forbear  importing  so  much  of  their 
own,  and  this  of  a  most  peculiar  and  Elizabethan 
character,  into  their  original,  that  they  effaced  the 
character  of  the  original  itself. 

Take  merely  the  opening  pages  to  Chapman's  trans- 
lation, the  introductory  verses,  and  the  dedications. 
You  will  find : — 

"  An  Anagram  of  the  name  of  our  Dread  Prince, 
My  most  gracious  and  sacred  Maecenas, 
Henry,  Prince  of  Wales, 
Our  Sunn,  Heyr,  Peace,  Life," — 

Henry,  son  of  James  the  First,  to  whom  the  work  is 
dedicated.     Then  comes  an  address, 

"  To  the  sacred  Fountain  of  Princes, 
Sole  Empress  of  Beauty  and  Virtue,  Anne,  Queen 
Of  England,"  etc. 

All  the  Middle  Age,  with  its  grotesqueness,  its 
conceits,  its  irrationality,  is  still  in  these  opening 
pages ;  they  by  themselves  are  sufficient  to  indicate 
to  us  what  a  gulf  divides  Chapman  from  the  "  clearest- 
souled  "  of  poets,  from  Homer  ;  almost  as  great  a  gulf 
as  that  which  divides  him  from  Voltaire.  Pope  has 
been  sneered  at  for  saying  that  Chapman  writes 
"  somewhat  as  one  might  imagine  Homer  himself  to 


164  ON"  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

have  written  before  he  arrived  at  years  of  discretion." 
But  the  remark  is  excellent :  Homer  expresses  him- 
self like  a  man  of  adult  reason,  Chapman  like  a  man 
whose  reason  has  not  yet  cleared  itself.  For  instance, 
if  Homer  had  had  to  say  of  a  poet,  that  he  hoped  his 
merit  was  now  about  to  be  fully  established  in  the 
opinion  of  good  judges,  he  was  as  incapable  of  saying 
this  as  Chapman  says  it, — "  Though  truth  in  her  very 
nakedness  sits  in  so  deep  a  pit,  that  from  Gades  to 
Aurora,  and  Ganges,  few  eyes  can  sound  her,  I  hope 
yet  those  few  here  will  so  discover  and  confirm  that 
the  date  being  out  of  her  darkness  in  this  morning  of 
our  poet,  he  shall  now  gird  his  temples  with  the  sun," 
— I  say,  Homer  was  as  incapable  of  saying  this  in  that 
manner,  as  Voltaire  himself  would  have  been.  Homer, 
indeed,  has  actually  an  affinity  with  Voltaire  in  the 
unrivalled  clearness  and  straightforwardness  of  his 
thinking ;  in  the  way  in  which  he  keeps  to  one  thought 
at  a  time,  and  puts  that  thought  forth  in  its  complete 
natural  plainness,  instead  of  being  led  away  from  it 
by  some  fancy  striking  him  in  connection  with  it,  and 
being  beguiled  to  wander  off  with  this  fancy  till  his 
original  thought,  in  its  natural  reality,  knows  him  no 
more.  What  could  better  show  us  how  gifted  a  race 
was  this  Greek  race  ?  The  same  member  of  it  has  not 
only  the  power  of  profoundly  touching  that  natural 
heart  of  humanity  which  it  is  Voltaire's  weakness 
that  he  cannot  reach,  but  can  also  address  the  under- 
standing with  all  Voltaire's  admirable  simplicity  and 
rationality. 

My  limits  will  not  allow  me  to  do  more   than 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  165 

shortly  illustrate,  from  Chapman's  version  of  the  Iliad, 
what  I  mean  when  I  speak  of  this  vital  difference 
between  Homer  and  an  Elizabethan  poet  in  the 
quality  of  their  thought ;  between  the  plain  simplicity 
of  the  thought  of  the  one,  and  the  curious  complexity 
of  the  thought  of  the  other.  As  in  Pope's  case,  I 
carefully  abstain  from  choosing  passages  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  making  Chapman  appear  ridiculous ; 
Chapman,  like  Pope,  merits  in  himself  all  respect, 
though  he  too,  like  Pope,  fails  to  render  Homer. 

In  that  tonic  speech  of  Sarpedon,  of  which  I  have 
said  so  much,  Homer,  you  may  remember,  has  : — 

el  fiev  yap,  ir6\efiov  irepl  rdvSe  (pvybvre, 
aid  5ij  jxiWoLfiev  dyrjpui  t   ddavdrw  re 
tcrcrecrd', — - 

"if  indeed,  but  once  this  battle  avoided, 
We  were  for  ever  to  live  without  growing  old  and  immortal. " 

Chapman  cannot  be  satisfied  with  this,  but  must  add 

a  fancy  to  it : — 

"if  keeping  back 
Would  keep  back  age  from  us,  and  death,  and  that  we  might 

not  wrack 
In  this  life's  human  sea  at  all ;  " 

and  so  on.  Again ;  in  another  passage  which  I  have 
before  quoted,  where  Zeus  says  to  the  horses  of 
Pelcus, 

tl  a<pQ'C  86/j.ev  HrfKrfL  avaKTi 
6vrjT<£  ;  v[ie?s  8'  earbv  ayrjpw  t'  dOavdrcx)  re-1 

"  Why  gave  we  you  to  royal  Peleus,  to  a  mortal  ?  but  ye  are 
without  old  age,  and  immortal." 

1  Iliad,  xv ii.  443. 


166  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

Chapman  sophisticates  this  into  : — 

"  Why  gave  we  you  t'  a  mortal  king,  when  immortality 
And  incapacity  of  age  so  dignifies  your  states  ?  " 

Again ;  in  the  speech  of  Achilles  to  his  horses,  where 

Achilles,   according  to  Homer,   says  simply,  "Take 

heed  that  ye  bring  your  master  safe  back  to  the  host 

of  the  Danaans,  in  some  other  sort  than  the  last  time, 

when  the  battle  is  ended,"  Chapman  sophisticates  this 

into  : — 

"  When  with  blood,  for  this  day's  fast  observed,  revenge  shall  yield 
Our  heart  satiety,  bring  us  off." 

In  Hector's  famous  speech,  again,  at  his  parting  from 
Andromache,  Homer  makes  him  say  :  "Nor  does  my 
own  heart  so  bid  me  "  (to  keep  safe  behind  the  walls), 
"  since  I  have  learned  to  be  staunch  always,  and  to 
fight  among  the  foremost  of  the  Trojans,  busy  on 
behalf  of  my  father's  great  glory,  and  my  own."1  In 
Chapman's  hand's  this  becomes  : — 

"The  spirit  I  first  did  breathe 
Did  never  teach  me  that ;  much  less,  since  the  contempt  of  death 
Was  settled  in  me,  and  my  mind  knew  what  a  worthy  was, 
Whose  office  is  to  lead  in  fight,  and  give  no  danger  pass 
Without  improvement.     In  this  fire  must  Hector's  trial  shine : 
Here  must  his  country,  father,  friends,  be  in  him  made  divine.' 

You  see  how  ingeniously  Homer's  plain  thought  is 
tormented,  as  the  French  would  say,  here.  Homer 
goes  on  :  "  For  well  I  know  this  in  my  mind  and  in 
my  heart,  the  day  will  be,  when  sacred  Troy  shall 
perish  : " — 

iaaerai  fjfiap,  6V  av  iror'  6XwXt/  "IXios  ipy. 
1  Iliad,  vi.  444. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  167 

Chapman  makes  this  : — 

' '  And  such  a  stormy  day  shall  come,  in  mind  and  soul  I  know, 
When  sacred  Troy  shall  shed  her  towers,  for  tears  of  over- 
throw. " 

I  might  go  on  for  ever,  but  I  could  not  give  you  a 
better  illustration  than  this  last,  of  what  I  mean  by 
saying  that  the  Elizabethan  poet  fails  to  render  Homer 
because  he  cannot  forbear  to  interpose  a  play  of 
thought  between  his  object  and  its  expression.  Chap- 
man translates  his  object  into  Elizabethan,  as  Pope 
translates  it  into  the  Augustan  of  Queen  Anne ;  both 
convey  it  to  us  through  a  medium.  Homer,  on  the 
other  hand,  sees  his  object  and  conveys  it  to  us 
immediately. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  perfect  plainness  and 
directness  of  Homer's  style,  in  spite  of  this  perfect 
plainness  and  directness  of  his  ideas,  he  is  eminently 
noble;  he  works  as  entirely  in  the  grand  style,  he  is 
as  grandiose,  as  Phidias,  or  Dante,  or  Michael  Angelo. 
This  is  what  makes  his  translators  despair.  "  To  give 
relief,"  says  Cowper,  "to  prosaic  subjects"  (such  as 
dressing,  eating,  drinking,  harnessing,  travelling,  going 
to  bed),  that  is  to  treat  such  subjects  nobly,  in  the 
grand  style,  "without  seeming  unreasonably  tumid, 
is  extremely  difficult."  It  is  difficult,  but  Homer  has 
done  it.  Homer  is  precisely  the  incomparable  poet 
he  is,  because  he  has  done  it.  His  translator  must 
not  be  tumid,  must  not  be  artificial,  must  not  be 
literary ;  true  :  but  then  also  he  must  not  be  common- 
place, must  not  be  ignoble.  I  have  shown  you  how 
translators  of  Homer  fail  by  wanting  rapidity,   by 


168  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

wanting  simplicity  of  style,  by  wanting  plainness  of 
thought :  in  a  second  lecture  I  will  show  you  how  a 
translator  fails  by  wanting  nobility. 


II. 

I  must  repeat  what  I  said  in  beginning,  that  the 
translator  of  Homer  ought  steadily  to  keep  in  mind 
where  lies  the  real  test  of  the  success  of  his  transla- 
tion, what  judges  he  is  to  try  to  satisfy.     He  is  to 
try  to  satisfy  scholars,  because  scholars  alone  have  the 
means  of  really  judging  him.     A  scholar  may  be  a 
pedant,  it  is  true,   and  then  his  judgment  will  be 
worthless ;  but  a  scholar  may  also  have  poetical  feel- 
ing, and  then  he  can  judge  him  truly;  whereas  all 
the  poetical  feeling  in  the  world  will  not  enable  a 
man  who  is  not  a  scholar  to  judge  him  truly.     For 
the  translator  is  to  reproduce  Homer,  and  the  scholar 
alone  has  the  means  of  knowing  that  Homer  who  is 
to  be  reproduced.     He  knows  him  but  imperfectly, 
for  he  is  separated  from  him  by  time,  race,  and  lan- 
guage ;  but  he  alone  knows  him  at  all.     Yet  people 
speak  as  if  there  were  two  real  tribunals   in   this 
matter,  —  the   scholar's   tribunal,    and    that    of    the 
general  public.     They  speak  as  if  the  scholar's  judg- 
ment was  one  thing,  and  the  general  public's  judgment 
another ;   both  with  their  shortcomings,   both  with 
their  liability  to  error ;  but  both  to  be  regarded  by 
the   translator.      The   translator  who  makes  verbal 
literalness  his  chief  care  "will,"  says  a  writer  in  the 
National  Review  whom  I  have  already  quoted,  "  be 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  169 

appreciated  by  the  scholar  accustomed  to  test  a  trans- 
lation rigidly  by  comparison  with  the  original,  to  look 
perhaps  with  excessive  care  to  finish  in  detail  rather 
than  boldness  and  general  effect,  and  find  pardon 
even  for  a  version  that  seems  bare  and  bold,  so  it  be 
scholastic  and  faithful.  But,  if  the  scholar  in  judging 
a  translation  looks  to  detail  rather  than  to  general 
effect,  he  judges  it  pedantically  and  ill.  The  appeal, 
however,  lies  not  from  the  pedantic  scholar  to  the 
general  public,  which  can  only  like  or  dislike  Chap- 
man's version,  or  Pope's,  or  Mr.  Newman's,  but  cannot 
judge  them ;  it  lies  from  the  pedantic  scholar  to  the 
scholar  who  is  not  pedantic,  who  knows  that  Homer 
is  Homer  by  his  general  effect,  and  not  by  his  single 
words,  and  who  demands  but  one  thing  in  a  transla- 
tion,— that  it  shall,  as  nearly  as  possible,  reproduce 
for  him  the  general  effect  of  Homer.  This,  then,  re- 
mains the  one  proper  aim  of  the  translator :  to  repro- 
duce on  the  intelligent  scholar,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
the  general  effect  of  Homer.  Except  so  far  as  he 
reproduces  this,  he  loses  his  labour,  even  though  he 
may  make  a  spirited  Iliad  of  his  own,  like  Pope,  or 
translate  Homer's  Iliad  word  for  word,  like  Mr.  New- 
man. If  his  proper  aim  were  to  stimulate  in  any 
manner  possible  the  general  public,  he  might  be  right 
in  following  Pope's  example ;  if  his  proper  aim  were 
to  help  schoolboys  to  construe  Homer,  he  might  be 
right  in  following  Mr.  Newman's.  But  it  is  not :  his 
proper  aim  is,  I  repeat  it  yet  once  more,  to  reproduce 
on  the  intelligent  scholar,  as  nearly  as  he  can,  the 
general  effect  of  Homer. 


170  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMEli. 

When,  therefore,  Cowper  says,  "  My  chief  boast  is 
that  I  have  adhered  closely  to  my  original ; "  when 
Mr.  Newman  says,  "My  aim  is  to  retain  every  pecu- 
liarity of  the  original,  to  be  faithful,  exactly  as  is  the 
case  with  the  draughtsman  of  the  Elgin  marbles ; " 
their  real  judge  only  replies  :  "  It  may  be  so  :  repro- 
duce then  upon  us,  reproduce  the  effect  of  Homer, 
as  a  good  copy  reproduces  the  effect  of  the  Elgin 
marbles." 

When,  again,  Mr.  Newman  tells  us  that  "by  an 
exhaustive  process  of  argument  and  experiment "  he 
has  found  a  metre  which  is  at  once  the  metre  of  "  the 
modern  Greek  epic,"  and  a  metre  "like  in  moral 
genius  "  to  Homer's  metre,  his  judge  has  still  but  the 
same  answer  for  him  :  "  It  may  be  so ;  reproduce  then 
on  our  ear  something  of  the  effect  produced  by  the 
movement  of  Homer." 

But  what  is  the  general  effect  which  Homer  pro- 
duces on  Mr.  Newman  himself?  because,  when  we 
know  this,  we  shall  know  whether  he  and  his  judges 
are  agreed  at  the  outset,  whether  we  may  expect  him, 
if  he  can  reproduce  the  effect  he  feels,  if  his  hand 
does  not  betray  him  in  the  execution,  to  satisfy  his 
judges  and  to  succeed.  If,  however,  Mr.  Newman's 
impression  from  Homer  is  something  quite  different 
from  that  of  his  judges,  then  it  can  hardly  be  expected 
that  any  amount  of  labour  or  talent  will  enable  him 
to  reproduce  for  them  their  Homer. 

Mr.  Newman  does  not  leave  us  in  doubt  as  to  the 
general  effect  which  Homer  makes  upon  him.  As  I 
have  told  you  what  is  the  general  effect  which  Homer 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  171 

makes  upon  me, — that  of  a  most  rapidly  moving  poet, 
that  of  a  poet  most  plain  and  direct  in  his  style,  that 
of  a  poet  most  plain  and  direct  in  his  ideas,  that  of  a 
poet  eminently  noble, — so  Mr.  Newman  tells  us  his 
general  impression  of  Homer.  "Homer's  style,"  he 
says,  "is  direct,  popular,  forcible,  quaint,  flowing,  garru- 
lous." Again :  "Homer  rises  and  sinks  with  his  subject, 
is  prosaic  when  it  is  tame,  is  low  when  it  is  mean." 

I  lay  my  finger  on  four  words  in  these  two  sen- 
tences of  Mr.  Newman,  and  I  say  that  the  man  who 
could  apply  those  words  to  Homer  can  never  render 
Homer  truly.  The  four  words  are  these  :  quaint, 
garrulous,  prosaic,  low.  Search  the  English  language 
for  a  word  which  does  not  apply  to  Homer,  and  you 
could  not  fix  on  a  better  than  quaint,  unless  perhaps 
you  fixed  on  one  of  the  other  three. 

Again ;  "  to  translate  Homer  suitably,"  says  Mr. 
Newman,  "  we  need  a  diction  sufficiently  antiquated 
to  obtain  pardon  of  the  reader  for  its  frequent  home- 
liness." "I  am  concerned,"  he  says  again,  "with  the 
artistic  problem  of  attaining  a  plausible  aspect  of 
moderate  antiquity,  while  remaining  easily  intelli- 
gible." And  again,  he  speaks  of  "the  more  anti- 
quated style  suited  to  this  subject."  Quaint !  anti- 
quated ! — but  to  whom1?  Sir  Thomas  Browne  is 
quaint,  and  the  diction  of  Chaucer  is  antiquated :  does 
Mr.  Newman  suppose  that  Homer  seemed  quaint  to 
Sophocles,  when  he  read  him,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
seems  quaint  to  us,  when  we  read  him1?  or  that 
Homer's  diction  seemed  antiquated  to  Sophocles,  as 
Chaucer's  diction  seems  antiquated  to  us?     But  we 


172  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

cannot  really  know,  I  confess,  how  Homer  seemed  to 
Sophocles :  well  then,  to  those  who  can  tell  us  how 
he  seems  to  them,  to  the  living  scholar,  to  our  only 
present  witness  on  this  matter, — does  Homer  make 
on  the  Provost  of  Eton,  when  he  reads  him,  the  im- 
pression of  a  poet  quaint  and  antiquated1?  does  he 
make  this  impression  on  Professor  Thompson,  or  Pro- 
fessor Jowett  1  When  Shakspeare  says,  "  The  princes 
orgulous,"  meaning  "  the  proud  princes,"  we  say,  "This 
is  antiquated ; "  when  he  says  of  the  Trojan  gates, 

that  they 

"With  massy  staples 
And  corresponsive  and  fulfilling  bolts 
Sperr  up  the  sons  of  Troy," 

we  say,  "This  is  both  quaint  and  antiquated."  But 
does  Homer  ever  compose  in  a  language  which  pro- 
duces on  the  scholar  at  all  the  same  impression  as  this 
language  which  I  have  quoted  from  Shakspeare? 
Never  once.  Shakspeare  is  quaint  and  antiquated 
in  the  lines  which  I  have  just  quoted ;  but  Shak- 
speare— need  I  say  it  1 — can  compose,  when  he  likes, 
when  he  is  at  his  best,  in  a  language  perfectly  simple, 
perfectly  intelligible ;  in  a  language  which,  in  spite 
of  the  two  centuries  and  a  half  which  part  its  author 
from  us,  stops  us  or  surprises  us  as  little  as  the 
language  of  a  contemporary.  And  Homer  has  not 
Shakspeare's  variations  :  Homer  always  composes  as 
Shakspeare  composes  at  his  best;  Homer  is  always 
simple  and  intelligible,  as  Shakspeare  is  often ; 
Homer  is  never  quaint  and  antiquated,  as  Shak- 
speare is  sometimes. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  173 

"When  Mr.  Newman  says  that  Homer  is  garrulous, 
he  seems,  perhaps,  to  depart  less  widely  from  the 
common  opinion  than  when  he  calls  him  quaint ;  for 
is  there  not  Horace's  authority  for  asserting  that 
"the  good  Homer  sometimes  nods,"  bonus  dormitat 
Homerus  ?  and  a  great  many  people  have  come,  from 
the  currency  of  this  well-known  criticism,  to  represent 
Homer  to  themselves  as  a  diffuse  old  man,  with  the 
full-stocked  mind,  but  also  with  the  occasional  slips 
and  weaknesses  of  old  age.  Horace  has  said  better 
things  than  his  "bonus  dormitat  Homerus;"  but  he 
never  meant  by  this,  as  I  need  not  remind  any  one 
who  knows  the  passage,  that  Homer  was  garrulous, 
or  anything  of  the  kind.  Instead,  however,  of  either 
discussing  what  Horace  meant,  or  discussing  Homer's 
garrulity  as  a  general  question,  I  prefer  to  bring  to 
my  mind  some  style  which  is  garrulous,  and  to  ask 
myself,  to  ask  you,  whether  anything  at  all  of  the 
impression  made  by  that  style  is  ever  made  by  the 
style  of  Homer.  The  mediaeval  romancers,  for  in- 
stance, are  garrulous ;  the  following,  to  take  out  of  a 
thousand  instances  the  first  which  comes  to  hand,  is 
in  a  garrulous  manner.  It  is  from  the  romance  of 
Richard  Coeur  de  Lion. 

"  Of  my  tale  be  not  a-wondered  ! 
The  French  says  he  slew  an  hundred 
(Whereof  is  made  this  English  saw) 
Or  he  rested  him  any  thraw. 
Him  followed  many  an  English  knight 
That  eagerly  holp  him  for  to  fight," — 

and  so  on.     Now  the  manner  of  that  composition  I 
call  garrulous ;  every  one  will  feel  it  to  be  garrulous  ; 


174  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

every  one  will  understand  what  is  meant  when  is  is 
called  garrulous.  Then  I  ask  the  scholar,— does 
Homer's  manner  ever  make  upon  you,  I  do  not  say, 
the  same  impression  of  its  garrulity  as  that  passage, 
but  does  it  make,  ever  for  one  moment,  an  impression 
in  the  slightest  way  resembling,  in  the  remotest  degree 
akin  to,  the  impression  made  by  that  passage  of  the 
mediaeval  poet  ?     I  have  no  fear  of  the  answer. 

I  follow  the  same  method  with  Mr.  Newman's  two 
other  epithets,  p-osaic  and  low.     "Homer  rises  and 
sinks  with  his  subject,"  says  Mr.  Newman ;  "  is  prosaic 
when  it  is  tame,  is  low  when  it  is  mean."     First  I 
say,  Homer  is  never,  in  any  sense,  to  be  with  truth 
called  prosaic ;  he  is  never  to  be  called  low.     He  does 
not  rise  and  sink  with  his  subject ;  on  the  contrary, 
his  manner  invests  his  subject,  whatever  his  subject 
be,  with  nobleness.     Then  I  look  for  an  author  of 
whom  it  may  with  truth  be  said,  that  he  "  rises  and 
sinks  with  its  subject,  is  prosaic  when  it  is  tame,  is 
low  when  it  is  mean."     Defoe  is  eminently  such  an 
author ;  of  Defoe's  manner  it  may  with  perfect  pre- 
cision be  said,  that  it  follows  his  matter ;  his  lifelike 
composition  takes  its  character  from  the  facts  which 
it  conveys,  not  from  the  nobleness  of  the  composer. 
In  Moll  Flanders  and  Colonel  Jack,  Defoe  is  undoubt- 
edly prosaic  when  his  subject  is  tame,  low  when  his 
subject  is  mean.     Does  Homer's  manner  in  the  Iliad, 
I  ask  the  scholar,  ever  make  upon  him  an  impres- 
sion  at   all   like   the   impression   made   by   Defoe's 
manner  in  Moll  Flanders  and  Colonel  Jack?     Does 
it  not,  on  the  contrary,  leave  him  with  an  impression 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  175 

of  nobleness,  even  when  it  deals  with  Thersites  or 
with  Irus  1 

Well  then,  Homer  is  neither  quaint,  nor  garrulous, 
nor  prosaic,  nor  mean :  and  Mr.  Newman,  in  seeing 
him  so,  sees  him  differently  from  those  who  are  to 
judge  Mr.  Newman's  rendering  of  him.  By  pointing 
out  how  a  wrong  conception  of  Homer  affects  Mr. 
Newman's  translation,  I  hope  to  place  in  still  clearer 
light  those  four  cardinal  truths  which  I  pronounce 
essential  for  him  who  would  have  a  right  conception 
of  Homer ;  that  Homer  is  rapid,  that  he  is  plain  and 
direct  in  word  and  style,  that  he  is  plain  and  direct 
in  his  ideas,  and  that  he  is  noble. 

Mr.  Newman  says  that  in  fixing  on  a  style  for 
suitably  rendering  Homer,  as  he  conceives  him,  he 
"alights  on  the  delicate  line  which  separates  the 
quaint  from  the  grotesque."  "I  ought  to  be  quaint," 
he  says,  "I  ought  not  to  be  grotesque."  This  is  a 
most  unfortunate  sentence.  Mr.  Newman  is  grotesque, 
which  he  himself  says  he  ought  not  to  be ;  and  he 
ought  not  to  be  quaint,  which  he  himself  says  he 
ought  to  be. 

"No  two  persons  will  agree,"  says  Mr.  Newman, 
"  as  to  where  the  quaint  ends  and  the  grotesque  be- 
gins;" and  perhaps  this  is  true.  But,  in  order  to 
avoid  all  ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  two  words,  it  is 
enough  to  say,  that  most  persons  would  call  an  expres- 
sion which  produced  on  them  a  very  strong  sense  of 
its  incongruity,  and  which  violently  surprised  them, 
grotesque  ;  and  an  expression,  which  produced  on  them 
a  slighter  sense  of  its  incongruity,  and  which  more 


176  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

gently  surprised  them,  quaint.  Using  the  two  words 
in  this  manner,  I  say,  that  when  Mr.  Newman  trans- 
lates Helen's  words  to  Hector  in  the  sixth  book, 

Aaep  e/j,eio,  Kvvbs  KaKOfj.7]xdvov,  oKpvo^crarjs,1 — 

"0,  brother  thou  of  me,  who  am  a  mischief- working  vixen, 
A  numbing  horror," — 

he  is  grotesque  ;  that  is,  he  expresses  himself  in  a 
manner  which  produces  on  us  a  very  strong  sense  of 
its  incongruity,  and  which  violently  surprises  us.  I 
say,  again,  that  when  Mr.  Newman  translates  the 
common  line, 

Ti]v  5'  7]fiei(3eT   iireira  fiiyas  Kopvdaio\os"EKTU3p, — 

"  Great  Hector  of  the  motley  helm  then  spake  to  her  respon- 
sive,"— 

or  the  common  expression  evKvyijuSes  'A^atot,  "  dapper- 
greaved  Achaians,"  he  is  quaint ;  that  is,  he  expresses 
himself  in  a  manner  which  produces  on  us  a  slighter 
sense  of  incongruity,  and  which  more  gently  surprises 
us.  But  violent  and  gentle  surprise  are  alike  far  from 
the  scholar's  spirit  when  he  reads  in  Homer  kwos  kciko- 
firj^dvov,  or,  KopvOatoXos  "E/<Tay>,  or,  ivKv/jfitSes  'A^atoi. 
These  expressions  no  more  seem  odd  to  him  than  the 
simplest  expressions  in  English.  He  is  not  more 
checked  by  any  feeling  of  strangeness,  strong  or  weak, 
when  he  reads  them,  than  when  he  reads  in  an  Eng- 
lish book  "the  painted  savage,"  or,  "the  phlegmatic 
Dutchman."  Mr.  Newman's  renderings  of  them  must, 
therefore,  be  wrong  expressions  in  a  translation  of 
Homer,  because  they  excite  in  the  scholar,  their  only 

1  Iliad,  vi.  344. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  177 

competent  judge,  a  feeling  quite  alien  to  that  excited 
in  him  by  what  they  profess  to  render. 

Mr.  Newman,  by  expressions  of  this  kind,  is  false 
to  his  original  in  two  ways.  He  is  false  to  him  inas- 
much as  he  is  ignoble  ;  for  a  noble  air,  and  a  grotesque 
air,  the  air  of  the  address, 

Aaep  efieio,  Kvvbs  Ka.Kop.-qxo.vov,  oKpuoeV crrys, — 

and  the  air  of  the  address, 

"0,  brother  thou  of  me,  who  am  a  mischief- working  vixen, 
A  numbing  horror," — 

are  just  contrary  the  one  to  the  other :  and  he  is  false 
to  him  inasmuch  as  he  is  odd  ;  for  an  odd  diction  like 
Mr.  Newman's,  and  a  perfectly  plain  natural  diction 
like  Homer's, —  "  dapper-greaved  Achaians  "  and  kvKvq- 
/xtoes  'Axeaot, — are  also  just  contrary  the  one  to  the 
other.  Where,  indeed,  Mr.  Newman  got  his  diction, 
with  whom  he  can  have  lived,  what  can  be  his  test  of 
antiquity  and  rarity  for  words,  are  questions  which  I 
ask  myself  with  bewilderment.  He  has  prefixed  to 
his  translation  a  list  of  what  he  calls  "the  more 
antiquated  or  rarer  words  "  which  he  has  used.  In 
this  list  appear,  on  the  one  hand,  such  words  as 
doughty,  grisly,  lusty,  noisome,  ravin,  which  are  familiar, 
one  would  think,  to  all  the  world ;  on  the  other  hand 
such  words  as  hragly,  meaning,  Mr.  Newman  tells  us, 
"  proudly  fine  ;  "  bulkin,  "  a  calf ; "  plump,  "  a  mass  ; " 
and  so  on.  "  I  am  concerned,"  says  Mr.  Newman, 
"  with  the  artistic  problem  of  attaining  a  plausible 
aspect  of  moderate  antiquity,  while  remaining  easily 
VOL.  II.  N 


178  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

intelligible."     But  it  seems  to  me  that  lusty  is  not 
antiquated:  and  that  bragly  is  not  a  word  readily 
understood.     That  this  word,  indeed,  and  bulkin,  may 
have  "a  plausible  aspect  of  moderate  antiquity,"  I 
admit ;  but  that  they  are  "  easily  intelligible,"  I  deny. 
Mr.  Newman's  syntax  has,  I  say  it  with  pleasure, 
a  much  more  Homeric  cast  than  his  vocabulary ;  his 
syntax,  the  mode  in  which  his  thought  is  evolved, 
although  not  the  actual  words  in  which  it  is  expressed, 
seems  to  me  right  in  its  general  character,  and  the 
best  feature  of  his  version.     It  is  not  artificial  or 
rhetorical  like  Cowper's  syntax  or  Pope's  :  it  is  simple, 
direct,  and  natural,  and  so  far  it  is  like  Homer's.     It 
fails,  however,  just  where,  from  the  inherent  fault  of 
Mr.  Newman's  conception  of  Homer,  one  might  ex- 
pect it  to  fail, — it  fails  in  nobleness.     It  presents  the 
thought  in  a  way  which   is  something   more   than 
unconstrained,— over-familiar ;  something  more  than 
easv> — free  and  easy.     In  this  respect  it  is  like  the 
movement  of  Mr.  Newman's  version,  like  his  rhythm, 
for  this,  too,  fails,  in  spite  of  some  good  qualities,  by 
not  being  noble  enough;  this,   while  it  avoids  the 
faults  of  being  slow  and  elaborate,  falls  into  a  fault 
in  the  opposite  direction,  and  is  slip-shod.     Homer 
presents  his  thought  naturally ;  but  when  Mr.  New- 
man has, 

"A  thousand  fires  along  the  plain,  I  say,  that  night  were  burn- 
ing,"- 

he  presents  his  thought  familiarly ;  in  a  style  which 
may  be  the  genuine  style  of  ballad-poetry,  but  which 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  179 

is  not  the  style  of  Homer.     Homer  moves  freely  ; 
but  when  Mr.  Newman  has, 
"  Infatuate  !  0  that  thou  wert  lord  to  some  other  army,"  *— 

he  gives  himself  too  much  freedom ;  he  leaves  us  too 
much  to  do  for  his  rhythm  ourselves,  instead  of  giving 
to  us  a  rhythm  like  Homer's,  easy  indeed,  but  master- 
ing our  ear  with  a  fulness  of  power  which  is  irre- 
sistible. 

I  said  that  a  certain  style  might  be  the  genuine 
style  of  ballad-poetry,  but  yet  not  the  style  of  Homer. 
The  analogy  of  the  ballad  is  ever  present  to  Mr. 
Newman's  thoughts  in  considering  Homer ;  and  per- 
haps nothing  has  more  caused  his  faults  than  this 
analogy, — this  popular,  but,  it  is  time  to  say,  this 
erroneous  analogy.  "  The  moral  qualities  of  Homer's 
style,"  says  Mr.  Newman,  "  being  like  to  those  of  the 
English  ballad,  we  need  a  metre  of  the  same  genius. 
Only  those  metres,  which  by  the  very  possession  of 
these  qualities  are  liable  to  degenerate  into  doggerel,  are 
suitable  to  reproduce  the  ancient  epic."  "The  style 
of  Homer,"  he  says,  in  a  passage  which  I  have  before 
quoted,  "is  direct,  popular,  forcible,  quaint,  flowing, 
garrulous  :  in  all  these  respects  it  is  similar  to  the  old 

1  From  the  reproachful  answer  of  Ulysses  to  Agamemnon, 
who  had  proposed  an  abandonment  of  their  expedition.     This 
is  one  of  the  ' '  tonic  "  passages  of  the  Iliad,  so  I  quote  it  : — 
"  Ah,  unworthy  king,  some  other  inglorious  army 
Should'st  thou  command,  not  rule  over  us,   whose  portion 

for  ever 
Zeus  hath  made  it,  from  youth  right  up  to  age,  to  be  winding 
Skeins  of  grievous  wars,  till  every  soul  of  us  perish." 

Iliad,  xiv.  84. 


180  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

English  ballad."  Mr.  Newman,  I  need  not  say,  is  by 
no  means  alone  in  this  opinion.  "The  most  really 
and  truly  Homeric  of  all  the  creations  of  the  English 
muse  is,"  says  Mr.  Newman's  critic  in  the  National 
Review,  "  the  ballad-poetry  of  ancient  times  ;  and  the 
association  between  metre  and  subject  is  one  that  it 
would  be  true  wisdom  to  preserve."  "  It  is  confessed," 
says  Chapman's  last  editor,  Mr.  Hooper,  "that  the 
fourteen -syllable  verse"  (that  is,  a  ballad-verse)  "is 
peculiarly  fitting  for  Homeric  translation."  And  the 
editor  of  Dr.  Maginn's  clever  and  popular  Homeric 
Ballads  assumes  it  as  one  of  his  author's  greatest  and 
most  undisputable  merits,  that  he  was  "  the  first  who 
consciously  realised  to  himself  the  truth  that  Greek 
ballads  can  be  really  represented  in  English  only  by 
a  similar  measure." 

This  proposition  that  Homer's  poetry  is  ballad 
poetry,  analogous  to  the  well-known  ballad-poetry  of 
the  English  and  other  nations,  has  a  certain  small 
portion  of  truth  in  it,  and  at  one  time  probably  served 
a  useful  purpose,  when  it  was  employed  to  discredit 
the  artificial  and  literary  manner  in  which  Pope  and 
his  school  rendered  Homer.  But  it  has  been  so  ex- 
travagantly over-used,  the  mistake  which  it  was  useful 
in  combating  has  so  entirely  lost  the  public  favour, 
that  it  is  now  much  more  important  to  insist  on  the 
large  part  of  error  contained  in  it,  than  to  extol  its 
small  part  of  truth.  It  is  time  to  say  plainly  that, 
whatever  the  admirers  of  our  old  ballads  may  think, 
the  supreme  form  of  epic  poetry,  the  genuine  Homeric 
mould,  is  not  the  form  of  the  Ballad  of  Lord  Bateman. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  181 

I  have  myself  shown  the  broad  difference  between 
Milton's  manner  and  Homer's ;  but,  after  a  course  of 
Mr.  Newman  and  Dr.  Maginn,  I  turn  round  in  despera- 
tion upon  them  and  upon  the  balladists  who  have  mis- 
led them,  and  I  exclaim :  "  Compared  with  you,  Milton 
is  Homer's  double  ;  there  is,  whatever  you  may  think, 
ten  thousand  times  more  of  the  real  strain  of  Homer 
in, 

'  Blind  Thamyris,  and  blind  Mseonides, 
And  Tiresias,  and  Phineus,  prophets  old, '  — 
than  in, 

'  Now  Christ  thee  save,  thou  proud  porter, 

Now  Christ  thee  save  and  see, ' 1 — 
or  in, 

"While  the  tinker  did  dine,  he  had  plenty  of  wine."  2 

For  Homer  is  not  only  rapid  in  movement,  simple 
in  style,  plain  in  language,  natural  in  thought ;  he  is 
also,  and  above  all,  noble.  I  have  advised  the  trans- 
lator not  to  go  into  the  vexed  question  of  Homer's 
identity.  Yet  I  will  just  remind  him  that  the  grand 
argument — or  rather,  not  argument,  for  the  matter 
affords  no  data  for  arguing,  but  the  grand  source  from 
which  conviction,  as  we  read  the  Iliad,  keeps  pressing 
in  upon  us,  that  there  is  one  poet  of  the  Iliad,  one 
Homer — is  precisely  this  nobleness  of  the  poet,  this 
grand  manner ;  we  feel  that  the  analogy  drawn  from 
other  joint  compositions  does  not  hold  good  here, 
because  those  works  do  not  bear,  like  the  Iliad,  the 
magic  stamp  of  a  master ;  and  the  moment  you  have 

1  From  the  ballad  of  King  Estmere,  in  Percy's  Reliques  of 
Ancient  English  Poetry,  i.  G9  (edit,  of  1767). 

2  Reliques,  i.  241. 


182  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

anything  less  than  a  masterwork,  the  co-operation  or 
consolidation  of  several  poets  becomes  possible,  for 
talent  is  not  uncommon  ;  the  moment  you  have  much 
less  than  a  masterwork,  they  become  easy,  for  medio- 
crity is  everywhere.  I  can  imagine  fifty  Bradies  joined 
with  as  many  Tates  to  make  the  New  Version  of  the 
Psalms.  I  can  imagine  several  poets  having  con- 
tributed to  any  one  of  the  old  English  ballads  in 
Percy's  collection.  I  can  imagine  several  poets, 
possessing,  like  Chapman,  the  Elizabethan  vigour  and 
the  Elizabethan  mannerism,  united  with  Chapman 
to  produce  his  version  of  the  Iliad.  I  can  imagine 
several  poets,  with  the  literary  knack  of  the  twelfth 
century,  united  to  produce  the  Nibelungen  Lay  in 
the  form  in  which  we  have  it, — a  work  which  the 
Germans,  in  their  joy  at  discovering  a  national  epic 
of  their  own,  have  rated  vastly  higher  than  it  deserves. 
And  lastly,  though  Mr.  Newman's  translation  of  Homer 
bears  the  strong  mark  of  his  own  idiosyncrasy,  yet  I 
can  imagine  Mr.  Newman  and  a  school  of  adepts 
trained  by  him  in  his  art  of  poetry,  jointly  producing 
that  work,  so  that  Aristarchus  himself  should  have 
difficulty  in  pronouncing  which  line  was  the  master's, 
and  which  a  pupil's.  But  I  cannot  imagine  several 
poets,  or  one  poet,  joined  with  Dante  in  the  composi- 
tion of  his  Inferno,  though  many  poets  have  taken 
for  their  subject  a  descent  into  Hell.  Many  artists, 
again,  have  represented  Moses  ;  but  there  is  only  one 
Moses  of  Michael  Angelo.  So  the  insurmountable 
obstacle  to  believing  the  Iliad  a  consolidated  work  of 
several  poets  is  this :  that  the  work  of  great  masters 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  183 

is  unique  ;  and  the  Iliad  has  a  great  master's  genuine 
stamp,  and  that  stamp  is  the  grand  style. 

Poets  who  cannot  work  in  the  grand  style  instinc- 
tively seek  a  style  in  which  their  comparative  inferi- 
ority may  feel  itself  at  ease,  a  manner  which  may  be, 
so  to  speak,  indulgent  to  their  inequalities.  The 
ballad-style  offers  to  an  epic  poet,  quite  unable  to 
fill  the  canvas  of  Homer,  or  Dante,  or  Milton,  a 
canvas  which  he  is  capable  of  filling.  The  ballad- 
measure  is  quite  able  to  give  due  effect  to  the 
vigour  and  spirit  which  its  employer,  when  at  his 
very  best,  may  be  able  to  exhibit ;  and,  when  he  is 
not  at  his  best,  when  he  is  a  little  trivial,  or  a  little 
dull,  it  will  not  betray  him,  it  will  not  bring  out  his 
weaknesses  into  broad  relief.  This  is  a  convenience ; 
but  it  is  a  convenience  which  the  ballad-style  pur- 
chases by  resigning  all  pretensions  to  the  highest,  to 
the  grand  manner.  It  is  true  of  its  movement,  as  it 
is  not  true  of  Homer's,  that  it  is  "  liable  to  degene- 
rate into  doggerel."  It  is  true  of  its  "moral  quali- 
ties," as  it  is  not  true  of  Homer's,  that  "quaintness" 
and  "  garrulity  "  are  among  them.  It  is  true  of  its 
employers,  as  it  is  not  true  of  Homer,  that  they 
"  rise  and  sink  with  their  subject,  are  prosaic  when 
it  is  tame,  are  low  when  it  is  mean."  For  this  reason 
the  ballad-style  and  the  ballad-measure  are  eminently 
inappropriate  to  render  Homer.  Homer's  manner 
and  movement  are  always  both  noble  and  power- 
ful :  the  ballad -manner  and  movement  are  often 
either  jaunty  and  smart,  so  not  noble ;  or  jog-trot 
and  humdrum,  so  not  powerful. 


184  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

The  Nibelungen  Lay  affords  a  good  illustration 
of  the  qualities  of  the  ballad -manner.  Based  on 
grand  traditions,  which  had  found  expression  in  a 
grand  lyric  poetry,  the  German  epic  poem  of  the 
Nibelungen  Lay,  though  it  is  interesting,  and  though 
it  has  good  passages,  is  itself  anything  rather  than  a 
grand  poem.  It  is  a  poem  of  which  the  composer  is, 
to  speak  the  truth,  a  very  ordinary  mortal,  and  often, 
therefore,  like  other  ordinary  mortals,  very  prosy. 
It  is  in  a  measure  which  eminently  adapts  itself  to 
this  commonplace  personality  of  its  composer,  which 
has  much  the  movement  of  the  well-known  measures 
of  Tate  and  Brady,  and  can  jog  on,  for  hundreds  of 
lines  at  a  time,  with  a  level  ease  which  reminds  one 
of  Sheridan's  saying  that  easy  writing  may  be  often 
such  hard  reading.  But,  instead  of  occupying  nryself 
with  the  Nibelungen  Lay,  I  prefer  to  look  at  the 
ballad-style  as  directly  applied  to  Homer,  in  Chap- 
man's version  and  Mr.  Newman's,  and  in  the  Homeric 
Ballads  of  Dr.  Maginn. 

First  I  take  Chapman.  I  have  already  shown 
that  Chapman's  conceits  are  un-Homeric,  and  that 
his  rhyme  is  un-Homeric ;  I  will  now  show  how  his 
manner  and  movement  are  un-Homeric.  Chapman's 
diction,  I  have  said,  is  generally  good ;  but  it  must 
be  called  good  with  this  reserve,  that,  though  it  has 
Homer's  plainness  and  directness,  it  often  offends 
him  who  knows  Homer,  by  wanting  Homer's  noble- 
ness. In  a  passage  which  I  have  already  quoted,  the 
address  of  Zeus  to  the  horses  of  Achilles,  where 
Homer  has — • 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  185 

2  oeihw,  tL  <r<pwi  ddfiev  Ilr/X-^t  Hvolkti 

dvqrQ  ;  vfMeis  8'  earbv  ayrjpw  t   ddavaTto  re  ! 

^  iva  5vGT7}voi<n  /xer   AfOpdcnv  &\ye'  'ixr\T0V  > 1 

Chapman  has — 

' '  '  Poor  wretched  beasts, '  said  he, 
Why  gave  we  you  to  a  mortal  king,  when  immortality 
And  incapacity  of  age  so  dignifies  your  states  ? 
Was  it  to  haste2  the  miseries  poured  out  on  human  fates  ?'  " 

There  are  many  faults  in  this  rendering  of  Chap- 
man's, but  what  I  particularly  wish  to  notice  in  it  is 
the  expression  "  Poor  wretched  beasts  "  for  a  SeiXw. 
This  expression  just  illustrates  the  difference  be- 
tween the  ballad-manner  and  Homer's.  The  ballad- 
manner — Chapman's  manner — is,  I  say,  pitched 
sensibly  lower  than  Homer's.  The  ballad-manner 
requires  that  an  expression  shall  be  plain  and  natu- 
ral, and  then  it  asks  no  more.  Homer's  manner 
requires  that  an  expression  shall  be  plain  and 
natural,  but  it  also  requires  that  it  shall  be  noble. 
'A  SeiAw  is  as  plain,  as  simple  as  "Poor  wretched 
beasts;"  but  it  is  also  noble,  Avhich  " Poor  wretched 
beasts  "  is  not.  "  Poor  wretched  beasts  "  is,  in  truth, 
a  little  over-familiar,  but  this  is  no  objection  to  it  for 
the  ballad-manner;  it  is  good  enough  for  the  old 
English  ballad,  good  enough  for  the  Nibelungen 
Lay,  good  enough  for  Chapman's  Iliad,  good  enough 
for  Mr.  Newman's  Iliad,  good  enough  for  Dr. 
Maginn's  Homeric  Ballads;  but  it  is  not  good 
enough  for  Homer. 

1  Iliad,  xvii.  443. 
2  All  the  editions  which  I  have  seen  have  "haste,"  but  the 
right  reading  must  certainly  be  "taste." 


186  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

To  feel  that  Chapman's  measure,  though  natural, 
is  not  Homeric ;  that,  though  tolerably  rapid,  it  has 
not  Homer's  rapidity ;  that  it  has  a  jogging  rapidity 
rather  than  a  flowing  rapidity ;  and  a  movement 
familiar  rather  than  nobly  easy,  one  has  only,  I 
think,  to  read  half  a  dozen  lines  in  any  part  of 
his  version.  I  prefer  to  keep  as  much  as  possible 
to  passages  which  I  have  already  noticed,  so  I  will 
quote  the  conclusion  of  the  nineteenth  book,  where 
Achilles  answers  his  horse  Xanthus,  who  has  pro- 
phesied his  death  to  him.1 

"Achilles,  far  in  rage, 
Thus  answered  him  : — It  fits  not  thee  thus  proudly  to  presage 
My  overthrow.     I  know  myself  it  is  my  fate  to  fall 
Thus  far  from  Phthia  ;  yet  that  fate  shall  fail  to  vent  her  gall 
Till  mine  vent  thousands. — These  words  said,  he  fell  to  horrid 

deeds, 
Gave  dreadful  signal,  and  forthright  made  fly  his  one-hoofed 

steeds." 

For  what  regards  the  manner  of  this  passage,  the 
words  "Achilles  Thus  answered  him,"  and  "I  know 
myself  it  is  my  fate  to  fall  Thus  far  from  Phthia," 
are  in  Homer's  manner,  and  all  the  rest  is  out  of  it. 
But  for  what  regards  its  movement,  who,  after  being 
jolted  by  Chapman  through  such  verse  as  this, — 

"These  words  said,  he  fell  to  horrid  deeds, 
Gave  dreadful  signal,  and  forthright  made  fly  his  one-hoofed 
steeds," — 

who  does  not  feel  the  vital  difference  of  the  move- 
ment of  Homer, — 

rj  pa,  /ecu  ii>  irpuiTOis  l&xuv  £%e  fiuivvxas  tirirovs  ? 
1  Iliad,  xix.  419. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  187 

To  pass  from  Chapman  to  Dr.  Maginn.  His 
Homeric  Ballads  are  vigorous  and  genuine  poems 
in  their  own  way;  they  are  not  one  continual 
falsetto,  like  the  pinchbeck  Roman  Ballads  of  Lord 
Macaulay ;  but  just  because  they  are  ballads  in  their 
manner  and  movement,  just  because,  to  use  the  words 
of  his  applauding  editor,  Dr.  Maginn  has  "  consciously 
realised  to  himself  the  truth  that  Greek  ballads  can 
be  really  represented  in  English  only  by  a  similar 
manner," — just  for  this  very  reason  they  are  not  at 
all  Homeric,  they  have  not  the  least  in  the  world 
the  manner  of  Homer.  There  is  a  celebrated  inci- 
dent in  the  nineteenth  book  of  the  Odyssey,  the 
recognition  by  the  old  nurse  Eurycleia  of  a  scar  on 
the  leg  of  her  master  Ulysses,  who  has  entered  his 
own  hall  as  an  unknown  wanderer,  and  whose  feet 
she  has  been  set  to  wash.  "  Then  she  came  near," 
says  Homer,  "  and  began  to  wash  her  master ;  and 
straightway  she  recognised  a  scar  which  he  had  got 
in  former  days  from  the  white  tusk  of  a  wild  boar, 
when  he  went  to  Parnassus  unto  Autolycus  and  the 
sons  of  Autolycus,  his  mother's  father  and  brethren."1 
This,  "  really  represented "  by  Dr.  Maginn,  in  "  a 
measure  similar  "  to  Homer's,  becomes : — 

' '  And  scarcely  had  she  begun  to  wash 
Ere  she  was  aware  of  the  grisly  gash 

Above  his  knee  that  lay. 
It  was  a  wound  from  a  wild-boar's  tooth, 
All  on  Parnassus'  slope, 

Where  he  went  to  hunt  in  the  days  of  his  youth 
With  his  mother's  sire," — 

1  Odyssey,  xix.  392. 


188  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

and  so  on.  That  is  the  true  ballad-manner,  no  one 
can  deny;  "all  on  Parnassus'  slope"  is,  I  was  going 
to  say,  the  true  ballad-slang;  but  never  again  shall 
I  be  able  to  read, 

vl£e  8'  dp  Hcraov  iovaa  dvaxO'  ebv  avrUa  8'  'i-yvio 
ovk-fp/ ' 

without  having  the  detestable  dance  of  Dr. 
Maginn's, — 

"  And  scarcely  had  she  begun  to  wash 
Ere  she  was  aware  of  the  grisly  gash," — 

jigging  in  my  ears,  to  spoil  the  effect  of  Homer,  and 
to  torture  me.  To  apply  that  manner  and  that 
rhythm  to  Homer's  incidents,  is  not  to  imitate 
Homer,  but  to  travesty  him. 

Lastly  I  come  to  Mr.  Newman.  His  rhythm,  like 
Chapman's  and  Dr.  Maginn's,  is  a  ballad-rhythm,  but 
with  a  modification  of  his  own.  "Holding  it,"  he 
tells  us,  "as  an  axiom,  that  rhyme  must  be  abandoned," 
he  found,  on  abandoning  it,  "an  unpleasant  void 
until  he  gave  a  double  ending  to  the  verse."  In  short, 
instead  of  saying, 

' '  Good  people  all  with  one  accord 
Give  ear  unto  my  tale" — 

Mr.  Newman  would  say, 

"Good  people  all  with  one  accord 
Give  ear  unto  my  story." 

A  recent  American  writer1  gravely  observes  that  for 

1  Mr.  Marsh,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  English  Language,  New 
York,  1860,  p.  520. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  189 

his  countrymen  this  rhythm  has  a  disadvantage  in 
heing  like  the  rhythm  of  the  American  national  air 
Yankee  Doodle,  and  thus  provoking  ludicrous  associa- 
tions. Yankee  Doodle  is  not  our  national  air :  for 
us  Mr.  Newman's  rhythm  has  not  this  disadvantage. 
He  himself  gives  us  several  plausible  reasons  why 
this  rhythm  of  his  really  ought  to  be  successful :  let 
us  examine  how  far  it  is  successful. 

Mr.  Newman  joins  to  a  bad  rhythm  so  bad  a 
diction  that  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  exactly 
whether  in  any  given  passage  it  is  his  words  or  his 
measure  which  produces  a  total  impression  of  such  an 
unpleasant  kind.  But  with  a  little  attention  we  may 
analyse  our  total  impression,  and  find  the  share  which 
each  element  has  in  producing  it.  To  take  the 
passage  which  I  have  so  often  mentioned,  Sarpedon's 
speech  to  Glaucus.  Mr.  Newman  translates  this  as 
follows : — 

"  0  gentle  friend  !  if  thou  and  I,  from  this  encounter  'scaping, 
Hereafter  might  forever  be  from  Eld  and  Death  exempted 
As  heavenly  gods,  not  I  in  sooth  would  fight  among  the 

foremost, 
Nor  liefly  thee  would  I  advance  to  man-ennobling  battle. 
Now, — sith  ten  thousand  shapes  of  Death  do  any-gait  pur- 
sue us 
Which  never  mortal  may  evade,  though   sly  of  foot  and 

nimble  ; — 
Onward  !  and  glory  let  us  earn,  or  glory  yield  to  some  one. — 

"  Could  all  our  care  elude  the  gloomy  grave 
Which  claims  no  less  the  fearful  than  the  brave  " — 

I  am  not  going  to  quote  Pope's  version  over  again, 
but  I  must  remark  in  passing,  how  much  more,  with 


190  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

all  Pope's  radical  difference  of  manner  from  Homer, 
it  gives  us  of  the  real  effect  of 

el  /J.ei>  yap,  w6\e/xov  wepl  rbvbe  (pvydvre — 

than  Mr.  Newman's  lines.  And  now,  why  are  Mr. 
Newman's  lines  faulty?  They  are  faulty,  first,  be- 
cause, as  a  matter  of  diction,  the  expressions  "  0 
gentle  friend,"  "eld,"  "in  sooth,"  "liefly,"  "advance," 
"man -ennobling,"  "sith,"  "any -gait,"  and  "sly  of 
foot,"  are  all  bad ;  some  of  them  worse  than  others, 
but  all  bad :  that  is,  they  all  of  them  as  here  used 
excite  in  the  scholar,  their  sole  judge, — excite,  I  will 
boldly  affirm,  in  Professor  Thompson  or  Professor 
Jowett, — a  feeling  totally  different  from  that  excited 
in  them  by  the  words  of  Homer  which  these  expres- 
sions profess  to  render.  The  lines  are  faulty,  secondly, 
because,  as  a  matter  of  rhythm,  any  and  every  line 
among  them  has  to  the  ear  of  the  same  judges  (I 
affirm  it  with  equal  boldness)  a  movement  as  unlike 
Homer's  movement  in  the  corresponding  line  as  the 
single  words  are  unlike  Homer's  words.  Oin-e  /ce  ere 
crTeWoijii  fidx7]1'  *s  KvSidveipav,  —  "Nor  liefly  thee 
would  I  advance  to  man -ennobling  battle;" — for 
whose  ears  do  those  two  rhythms  produce  impressions 
of,  to  use  Mr.  Newman's  own  words,  "  similar  moral 
genius  1 " 

I  will  by  no  means  make  search  in  Mr.  Newman's 
version  for  passages  likely  to  raise  a  laugh ;  that 
search,  alas !  would  be  far  too  easy.  I  will  quote 
but  one  other  passage  from  him,  and  that  a  passage 
where   the   diction   is   comparatively   inoffensive,   in 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  191 

order  that  disapproval  of  the  words  may  not  unfairly 
heighten  disapproval  of  the  rhythm.  The  end  of  the 
nineteenth  book,  the  answer  of  Achilles  to  his  horse 
Xanthus,  Mr.  Newman  gives  thus  : — 

"  '  Chestnut !  why  hodest  death  to  me  ?  from  thee  this  was  not 
needed. 
Myself  right  surely  know  also,  that  't  is  my  doom  to  perish, 
From  mother  and  from  father  dear  apart,  in  Troy  ;  but  never 
Pause  will  I  make  of  war,  until  the  Trojans  be  glutted.' 
He  spake,  and  yelling,  held  afront  the  single-hoofed  horses." 

Here  Mr.  Newman  calls  Xanthus  Chestnut,  indeed,  as 
he  calls  Balius  Spotted,  and  Padorga  Spry-foot ;  which 
is  as  if  a  Frenchman  were  to  call  Miss  Nightingale 
Mdlle.  Piossignol,  or  Mr.  Bright  M.  Clair.  And 
several  other  expressions,  too,  —  "yelling,"  "held 
afront,"  "single -hoofed," — leave,  to  say  the  very 
least,  much  to  be  desired.  Still,  for  Mr.  Newman, 
the  diction  of  this  passage  is  pure.  All  the  more 
clearly  appears  the  profound  vice  of  a  rhythm,  which, 
with  comparatively  few  faults  of  words,  can  leave  a 
sense  of  such  incurable  alienation  from  Homer's 
manner  as,  "Myself  right  surely  know  als6  that  'tis 
my  doom  to  perish, — compared  with  the  ev  vv  rot  oTSa 
<al  avros,  o  [xol  /xopos  ev6d&  oXkcrOai  of  Homer. 

But  so  deeply  seated  is  the  difference  between  the 
ballad-manner  and  Homer's,  that  even  a  man  of  the 
highest  powers,  even  a  man  of  the  greatest  vigour  of 
spirit  and  of  true  genius, — the  Coryphaeus  of  balladists, 
Sir  Walter  Scott, — fails  with  a  manner  of  this  kind 
to  produce  an  effect  at  all  like  the  effect  of  Homer. 
"I  am  not  so  rash,"  declares  Mr.  Newman,   "as  to 


192  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

say  that  if  freedom  be  given  to  rhyme  as  in  Walter 
Scott's  poetry," — Walter  Scott,  "by  far  the  most 
Homeric  of  our  poets,"  as  in  another  place  he  calls 
him, — "a  genius  may  not  arise  who  will  translate 
Homer  into  the  melodies  of  Marmion."  "The  truly 
classical  and  the  truly  romantic,"  says  Dr.  Maginn, 
"are  one;  the  moss-trooping  Nestor  reappears  in  the 
moss-trooping  heroes  of  Percy's  Reliques;"  and  a 
description  by  Scott,  which  he  quotes,  he  calls 
"graphic,  and  therefore  Homeric."  He  forgets  our 
fourth  axiom, — that  Homer  is  not  only  graphic ;  he 
is  also  noble,  and  has  the  grand  style.  Human  nature 
under  like  circumstances  is  probably  in  all  ages  much 
the  same  ;  and  so  far  it  may  be  said  that  "  the  truly 
classical  and  the  truly  romantic  are  one ; "  but  it  is 
of  little  use  to  tell  us  this,  because  we  know  the 
human  nature  of  other  ages  only  through  the  repre- 
sentations of  them  which  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
the  classical  and  the  romantic  modes  of  representation 
are  so  far  from  being  "one,"  that  they  remain  eternally 
distinct,  and  have  created  for  us  a  separation  between 
the  two  worlds  which  they  respectively  represent. 
Therefore  to  call  Nestor  the  "moss-trooping  Nestor" 
is  absurd,  because,  though  Nestor  may  possibly  have 
been  much  the  same  sort  of  man  as  many  a  moss- 
trooper, he  has  yet  come  to  us  through  a  mode  of 
representation  so  unlike  that  of  Percy's  Reliques,  that, 
instead  of  "  reappearing  in  the  moss-trooping  heroes  " 
of  these  poems,  he  exists  in  our  imagination  as  some- 
thing utterly  unlike  them,  and  as  belonging  to  another 
world.     So  the  Greeks  in  Shakspeare's  Troilus  and 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  193 

Cressida  are  no  longer  the  Greeks  whom  we  have 
known  in  Homer,  because  they  come  to  us  through  a 
mode  of  representation  of  the  romantic  world.  But 
I  must  not  forget  Scott. 

I  suppose  that  when  Scott  is  in  what  may  be  called 
full  ballad  swing,  no  one  will  hesitate  to  pronounce 
his  manner  neither  Homeric  nor  the  grand  manner. 
When  he  says,  for  instance, 

"I  do  not  rhyme  to  that  dull  elf 
Who  cannot  image  to  himself,"1 

and  so  on,  any  scholar  will  feel  that  this  is  not  Homer's 

manner.     But  let  us  take  Scott's  poetry  at  its  best ; 

and  when  it  is  at  its  best,  it  is  undoubtedly  very  good 

indeed  : — 

"  Tunstall  lies  dead  upon  the  field, 
His  life-blood  stains  the  spotless  shield  ; 
Edmund  is  down, — my  life  is  reft, — 
The  Admiral  alone  is  left. 
Let  Stanley  charge  with  spur  of  fire, — 
With  Chester  charge,  and  Lancashire, 
Full  upon  Scotland's  central  host, 
Or  victory  and  England's  lost."2 

That  is,  no  doubt,  as  vigorous  as  possible,  as  spirited 
as  possible  ;  it  is  exceedingly  fine  poetry.  And  still 
I  say,  it  is  not  in  the  grand  manner,  and  therefore  it 
is  not  like  Homer's  poetry.  Now,  how  shall  I  make 
him  who  doubts  this  feel  that  I  say  true ;  that  these 
lines  of  Scott  are  essentially  neither  in  Homer's  style 
nor  in  the  grand  style  1  I  may  point  out  to  him  that 
the  movement  of  Scott's  lines,  while  it  is  rapid,  is  also 

1  Marmion,  canto  vi.  38.  2  Marmion,  canto  vi.  29. 

VOL.   II.  0 


194  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

at  the  same  time  what  the  French  call  saccacU,  its 
rapidity  is  "  jerky ; "  whereas  Homer's  rapidity  is  a 
flowing  rapidity.  But  this  is  something  external  and 
material ;  it  is  but  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an 
inward  and  spiritual  diversity.  I  may  discuss  what, 
in  the  abstract,  constitutes  the  grand  style ;  but  that 
sort  of  general  discussion  never  much  helps  our  judg- 
ment of  particular  instances.  I  may  say  that  the 
presence  or  absence  of  the  grand  style  can  only  be 
spiritually  discerned ;  and  this  is  true,  but  to  plead 
this  looks  like  evading  the  difficulty.  My  best  way 
is  to  take  eminent  specimens  of  the  grand  style,  and 
to  put  them  side  by  side  with  this  of  Scott.  For 
example,  when  Homer  says  : — 

a\\&,  cpiXos,  Oave  /cat  cnV     tLt]  dXvcptpeai  ourws; 
KarOaue  /cat  ndrpo/cAos,  oirep  aio  irdKhbv  afieivwv,1 

that  is  in  the  grand  style.     When  Virgil  says  :— 

"Disce,  puer,  virtutem  ex  me  veruraque  laborem, 
Fortunam  ex  aliis,"2 

that  is  in  the  grand  style.     When  Dante  says : — 

' '  Lascio  lo  fele,  et  vo  pei  dolci  pomi 
Promessi  a  me  per  lo  verace  Duea  ; 
Ma  fino  al  centro  pria  convien  ch'  io  tomi,"3 


1  "Be  content,  good  friend,  die  also  thou!  why  lamentest 
thou  thyself  on  this  wise  ?  Patroclus,  too,  died,  who  was  a  far 
better  than  thou."— Iliad,  xxi.  106. 

2  ' '  From  me,  young  man,  learn  nobleness  of  soul  and  true 
effort :  learn  success  from  others." — JEneid,  xii.  435. 

3  "  I  leave  the  gall  of  bitterness,  and  I  go  for  the  apples  of 
sweetness  promised  unto  me  by  my  faithful  Guide  ;  but  far  as 
the  centre  it  behoves  me  first  to  fall."— Hell,  xvi.  61. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  195 

that  is  in  the  grand  style.     When  Milton  says : — 

' '  His  form  had  yet  not  lost 
All  her  original  brightness,  nor  appeared 
Less  than  archangel  ruined,  and  the  excess 
Of  glory  obscured,"1 

that,  finally,  is  in  the  grand  style.  Now  let  any  one, 
after  repeating  to  himself  these  four  passages,  repeat 
again  the  passage  of  Scott,  and  he  will  perceive  that 
there  is  something  in  style  which  the  four  first  have 
in  common,  and  which  the  last  is  without ;  and  this 
something  is  precisely  the  grand  manner.  It  is  no 
disrespect  to  Scott  to  say  that  he  does  not  attain  to 
this  manner  in  his  poetry ;  to  say  so,  is  merely  to  say 
that  he  is  not  among  the  five  or  six  supreme  poets  of 
the  world.  Among  these  he  is  not;  but,  being  a 
man  of  far  greater  powers  than  the  ballad-poets,  he 
has  tried  to  give  to  their  instrument  a  compass  and 
an  elevation  which  it  does  not  naturally  possess,  in 
order  to  enable  him  to  come  nearer  to  the  effect  of 
the  instrument  used  by  the  great  epic  poets, — an 
instrument  which  he  felt  he  could  not  truly  use, — 
and  in  this  attempt  he  has  but  imperfectly  succeeded. 
The  poetic  style  of  Scott  is — (it  becomes  necessary  to 
say  so  when  it  is  proposed  to  "  translate  Homer  into 
the  melodies  of  Marmion") — it  is,  tried  by  the  highest 
standards,  a  bastard  epic  style ;  and  that  is  why,  out 
of  his  own  powerful  hands,  it  has  had  so  little  success. 
It  is  a  less  natural,  and  therefore  a  less  good  style, 
than  the  original  ballad -style;  while  it  shares  with 
the  ballad-style  the  inherent  incapacity  of  rising  into 

1  Paradise  Lost,  i.  591. 


196  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

the  grand  style,  of  adequately  rendering  Homer. 
Scott  is  certainly  at  his  best  in  his  battles.  Of  Homer 
you  could  not  say  this ;  he  is  not  better  in  his  battles 
than  elsewhere ;  but  even  between  the  battle-pieces 
of  the  two  there  exists  all  the  difference  which  there 
is  between  an  able  work  and  a  masterpiece. 

' '  Tunstall  lies  dead  upon  the  field, 
His  life-blood  stains  the  spotless  shield  : 
Edmund  is  down, — my  life  is  reft, — 
The  Admiral  alone  is  left." 

— "For  not  in  the  hands  of  Diomede  the  son  of 
Tydeus  rages  the  spear,  to  ward  off  destruction  from 
the  Danaans ;  neither  as  yet  have  I  heard  the  voice 
of  the  son  of  Atreus,  shouting  out  of  his  hated  mouth ; 
but  the  voice  of  Hector  the  slayer  of  men  bursts 
round  me,  as  he  cheers  on  the  Trojans ;  and  they 
with  their  yellings  fill  all  the  plain,  overcoming  the 
Achaians  in  the  battle." — I  protest  that,  to  my  feeling, 
Homer's  performance,  even  through  that  pale  and 
far-off  shadow  of  a  prose  translation,  still  has  a  hundred 
times  more  of  the  grand  manner  about  it,  than  the 
original  poetry  of  Scott. 

Well,  then,  the  ballad -manner  and  the  ballad- 
measure,  whether  in  the  hands  of  the  old  ballad 
poets,  or  arranged  by  Chapman,  or  arranged  by  Mr. 
Newman,  or,  even,  arranged  by  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
cannot  worthily  render  Homer.  And  for  one  reason  : 
Homer  is  plain,  so  are  they  ;  Homer  is  natural,  so  are 
they  ;  Homer  is  spirited,  so  are  they ;  but  Homer  is 
sustainedly  noble,  and  they  are  not.  Homer  and  they 
are  both  of  them  natural,  and  therefore  touching  and 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  197 

stirring;  but  the  grand  style,  which  is  Homer's,  is 
something  more  than  touching  and  stirring;  it  can  form 
the  character,  it  is  edifying.  The  old  English  balladist 
may  stir  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  heart  like  a  trumpet,  and 
this  is  much  :  but  Homer,  but  the  few  artists  in  the 
grand  style,  can  do  more;  they  can  refine  the  raw 
natural  man,  they  can  transmute  him.  So  it  is  not 
without  cause  that  I  say,  and  say  again,  to  the  trans- 
lator of  Homer  :  "  Never  for  a  moment  suffer  yourself 
to  forget  our  fourth  fundamental  proposition,  Homer 
is  noble."  For  it  is  seen  how  large  a  share  this  noble- 
ness has  in  producing  that  general  effect  of  his,  which 
it  is  the  main  business  of  a  translator  to  reproduce. 

I  shall  have  to  try  your  patience  yet  once  more 
upon  this  subject,  and  then  my  task  will  be  completed. 
I  have  shown  what  the  four  axioms  respecting  Homer 
which  I  have  laid  down,  exclude,  what  they  bid  a 
translator  not  to  do  ;  I  have  still  to  show  what  they 
supply,  what  positive  help  they  can  give  to  the  trans- 
lator in  his  work.  I  will  even,  with  their  aid,  myself 
try  my  fortune  with  some  of  those  passages  of  Homer 
which  I  have  already  noticed  ;  not  indeed  with  any 
confidence  that  I  more  than  others  can  succeed  in 
adequately  rendering  Homer,  but  in  the  hope  of  satis- 
fying competent  judges,  in  the  hope  of  making  it 
clear  to  the  future  translator,  that  I  at  any  rate  follow 
a  right  method,  and  that,  in  coming  short,  I  come 
short  from  weakness  of  execution,  not  from  original 
vice  of  design.  This  is  why  I  have  so  long  occupied 
myself  with  Mr.  Newman's  version  ;  that,  apart  from 
all  faults  of  execution,  his  original  design  was  wrong, 


198  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

and  that  he  has  done  us  the  good  service  of  declaring 
that  design  in  its  naked  wrongness.  To  bad  practice 
he  has  prefixed  the  bad  theory  which  made  the 
practice  bad ;  he  has  given  us  a  false  theory  in  his 
preface,  and  he  has  exemplified  the  bad  effects  of 
that  false  theory  in  his  translation.  It  is  because  his 
starting-point  is  so  bad  that  he  runs  so  badly ;  and  to 
save  others  from  taking  so  false  a  starting-point,  may 
be  to  save  them  from  running  so  futile  a  course. 

Mr.  Newman,  indeed,  says  in  his  preface,  that  if 
any  one  dislikes  his  translation,  "  he  has  his  easy 
remedy ;  to  keep  aloof  from  it."  But  Mr.  Newman 
is  a  writer  of  considerable  and  deserved  reputation  ; 
he  is  also  a  Professor  of  the  University  of  London, 
an  institution  which  by  its  position  and  by  its  merits 
acquires  every  year  greater  importance.  It  would  be 
a  very  grave  thing  if  the  authority  of  so  eminent  a 
Professor  led  his  students  to  misconceive  entirely  the 
chief  work  of  the  Greek  world  ;  that  work  which, 
whatever  the  other  works  of  classical  antiquity  have 
to  give  us,  gives  it  more  abundantly  than  they  all. 
The  eccentricity  too,  the  arbitrariness,  of  which  Mr. 
Newman's  conception  of  Homer  offers  so  signal  an 
example,  are  not  a  peculiar  failing  of  Mr.  Newman's 
own  ;  in  varying  degrees  they  are  the  great  defect  of 
English  intellect,  the  great  blemish  of  English  litera- 
ture. Our  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
literature  of  the  school  of  Dryden,  Addison,  Pope, 
Johnson,  is  a  long  reaction  against  this  eccentricity, 
this  arbitrariness  ;  that  reaction  perished  by  its  own 
faults,  and  its  enemies  are  left  once  more  masters  of 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  199 

the  field.  It  is  much  more  likely  that  any  new 
English  version  of  Homer  will  have  Mr.  Newman's 
faults  than  Pope's.  Our  present  literature,  which  is 
very  far,  certainly,  from  having  the  spirit  and  power 
of  Elizabethan  genius,  yet  has  in  its  own  way  these 
faults,  eccentricity  and  arbitrariness,  quite  as  much 
as  the  Elizabethan  literature  ever  had.  They  are 
the  cause  that,  while  upon  none,  perhaps,  of  the 
modern  literatures  has  so  great  a  sum  of  force  been 
expended  as  upon  the  English  literature,  at  the  pre- 
sent hour  this  literature,  regarded  not  as  an  object  of 
mere  literary  interest  but  as  a  living  intellectual 
instrument,  ranks  only  third  in  European  effect  and 
importance  among  the  literatures  of  Europe ;  it  ranks 
after  the  literatures  of  France  and  Germany.  Of  these 
two  literatures,  as  of  the  intellect  of  Europe  in  general, 
the  main  effort,  for  now  many  years,  has  been  a  critical 
effort ;  the  endeavour,  in  all  branches  of  knowledge, 
theology,  philosophy,  history,  art,  science, — to  see  the 
object  as  in  itself  it  really  is.  But,  owing  to  the 
presence  in  English  literature  of  this  eccentric  and 
arbitrary  spirit,  owing  to  the  strong  tendency  of  Eng- 
lish writers  to  bring  to  the  consideration  of  their  object 
some  individual  fancy,  almost  the  last  thing  for  which 
one  would  come  to  English  literature  is  just  that  very 
thing  which  now  Europe  most  desires — criticism.  It 
is  useful  to  notice  any  signal  manifestation  of  those 
faults,  which  thus  limit  and  impair  the  action  of  our 
literature.  And  therefore  I  have  pointed  out  how 
widely,  in  translating  Homer,  a  man  even  of  real  ability 
and  learning  may  go  astray,  unless  he  brings  to  the 


200  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMEE. 

study  of  this  clearest  of  poets  one  quality  in  which 
our  English  authors,  with  all  their  great  gifts,  are  apt 
to  be  somewhat  wanting — simple  lucidity  of  mind. 

IIL 

Homer  is  rapid  in  his  movement,  Homer  is  plain 
in  his  words  and  style,  Homer  is  simple  in  his  ideas, 
Homer  is  noble  in  his  manner.  Cowper  renders  him 
ill  because  he  is  slow  in  his  movement,  and  elaborate 
in  his  style  ;  Pope  renders  him  ill  because  he  is  arti- 
ficial both  in  his  style  and  in  his  words ;  Chapman 
renders  him  ill  because  he  is  fantastic  in  his  ideas  ; 
Mr.  Newman  renders  him  ill  because  he  is  odd  in  his 
words  and  ignoble  in  his  manner.  All  four  trans- 
lators diverge  from  their  original  at  other  points 
besides  those  named  ;  but  it  is  at  the  points  thus 
named  that  their  divergence  is  greatest.  For  instance, 
Cowper's  diction  is  not  as  Homer's  diction,  nor  his 
nobleness  as  Homer's  nobleness ;  but  it  is  in  move- 
ment and  grammatical  style  that  he  is  most  unlike 
Homer.  Pope's  rapidity  is  not  of  the  same  sort  as 
Homer's  rapidity,  nor  are  his  plainness  of  ideas  and 
his  nobleness  as  Homer's  plainness  of  ideas  and  noble- 
ness :  but  it  is  in  the  artificial  character  of  his  style 
and  diction  that  he  is  most  unlike  Homer.  Chap- 
man's movement,  words,  style,  and  manner,  are  often 
far  enough  from  resembling  Homer's  movement, 
Avords,  style,  and  manner ;  but  it  is  the  fantasticality 
of  his  ideas  which  puts  him  farthest  from  resembling 
Homer.      Mr.    Newman's    movement,    grammatical 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  201 

style,  and  ideas,  are  a  thousand  times  in  strong  con- 
trast with  Homer's ;  still  it  is  by  the  oddness  of  his 
diction  and  the  ignobleness  of  his  manner  that  he 
contrasts  with  Homer  the  most  violently. 

Therefore  the  translator  must  not  say  to  himself  : 
"  Cowper  is  noble,  Pope  is  rapid,  Chapman  has  a 
good  diction,  Mr.  Newman  has  a  good  cast  of  sen- 
tence ;  I  will  avoid  Cowper's  slowness,  Pope's  arti- 
ficiality, Chapman's  conceits,  Mr.  Newman's  oddity ; 
I  will  take  Cowper's  dignified  manner,  Pope's  impetu- 
ous movement,  Chapman's  vocabulary,  Mr.  Newman's 
syntax,  and  so  make  a  perfect  translation  of  Homer." 
Undoubtedly  in  certain  points  the  versions  of  Chap- 
man, Cowper,  Pope,  and  Mr.  Newman,  all  of  them 
have  merit ;  some  of  them  very  high  merit,  others  a 
lower  merit ;  but  even  in  these  points  they  have  none 
of  them  precisely  the  same  kind  of  merit  as  Homer, 
and  therefore  the  new  translator,  even  if  he  can  imi- 
tate them  in  their  good  points,  will  still  not  satisfy 
his  judge,  the  scholar,  who  asks  him  for  Homer  and 
Homer's  kind  of  merit,  or,  at  least,  for  as  much  of 
them  as  it  is  possible  to  give. 

So  the  translator  really  has  no  good  model  before 
him  for  any  part  of  his  work,  and  has  to  invent 
everything  for  himself.  He  is  to  be  rapid  in  move- 
ment, plain  in  speech,  simple  in  thought,  and  noble ; 
and  how  he  is  to  be  either  rapid,  or  plain,  or  simple, 
or  noble,  no  one  yet  has  shown  him.  I  shall  try  to-day 
to  establish  some  practical  suggestions  which  may  help 
the  translator  of  Homer's  poetry  to  comply  with  the 
four  grand  requirements  which  we  make  of  him. 


202  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

His  version  is  to  be  rapid  ;  and  of  course,  to  make 
a  man's  poetry  rapid,  as  to  make  it  noble,  nothing 
can  serve  him  so  much  as  to  have,  in  his  own  nature, 
rapidity  and  nobleness.  It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth  ; 
and  no  one  will  so  well  render  Homer's  swift-flowing 
movement  as  he  who  has  himself  something  of  the 
swift-moving  spirit  of  Homer.  Yet  even  this  is  not 
quite  enough.  Pope  certainly  had  a  quick  and  dart- 
ing spirit,  as  he  had,  also,  real  nobleness ;  yet  Pope 
does  not  render  the  movement  of  Homer.  To  render 
this  the  translator  must  have,  besides  his  natural 
qualifications,  an  appropriate  metre. 

I  have  sufficiently  shown  why  I  think  all  forms  of 
our  ballad-metre  unsuited  to  Homer.  It  seems  to  me 
to  be  beyond  question  that,  for  epic  poetry,  only 
three  metres  can  seriously  claim  to  be  accounted 
capable  of  the  grand  style.  Two  of  these  will  at 
once  occur  to  every  one, — the  ten-syllable,  or  so- 
called  heroic,  couplet,  and  blank  verse.  I  do  not 
add  to  these  the  Spenserian  stanza,  although  Dr. 
Maginn,  whose  metrical  eccentricities  I  have  already 
criticised,  pronounces  this  stanza  the  one  right  mea- 
sure for  a  translation  of  Homer.  It  is  enough  to 
observe,  that  if  Pope's  couplet,  with  the  simple  system 
of  correspondences  that  its  rhymes  introduce,  changes 
the  movement  of  Homer,  in  which  no  such  corre- 
spondences t  are  found,  and  is  therefore  a  bad  measure 
for  a  translator  of  Homer  to  employ,  Spenser's  stanza, 
with  its  far  more  intricate  system  of  correspondences, 
must  change  Homer's  movement  far  more  profoundly, 
and  must  therefore  be  for  the  translator  a  far  worse 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  203 

measare  than  the  couplet  of  Pope.  Yet  I  will  say,  at 
the  same  time,  that  the  verse  of  Spenser  is  more 
fluid,  slips  more  easily  and  quickly  along,  than  the 
verse  of  almost  any  other  English  poet. 

"  By  this  the  northern  wagoner  had  set 
His  seven-fold  team  behind  the  steadfast  star 
That  was  in  ocean  waves  yet  never  wet, 
But  firm  is  fixt,  and  sendeth  light  fiom  far 
To  all  that  in  the  wide  deep  wandering  are." 1 

One  cannot  but  feel  that  English  verse  has  not  often 
moved  with  the  fluidity  and  sweet  ease  of  these  lines. 
It  is  possible  that  it  may  have  been  this  quality  of 
Spenser's  poetry  which  made  Dr.  Maginn  think  that 
the  stanza  of  The  Faery  Queen  must  be  a  good  measure 
for  rendering  Homer.  This  it  is  not :  Spenser's  verse 
is  fluid  and  rapid,  no  doubt,  but  there  are  more  ways 
than  one  of  being  fluid  and  rapid,  and  Homer  is  fluid 
and  rapid  in  quite  another  way  than  Spenser.  Spenser's 
manner  is  no  more  Homeric  than  is  the  manner  of 
the  one  modern  inheritor  of  Spenser's  beautiful  gift, — 
the  poet,  who  evidently  caught  from  Spenser  his  sweet 
and  easy-slipping  movement,  and  who  has  exquisitely 
employed  it;  a  Spenserian  genius,  nay,  a  genius  by 
natural  endowment  richer  probably  than  even  Spen- 
ser ;  that  light  which  shines  so  unexpected  and  with- 
out fellow  in  our  century,  an  Elizabethan  born  too 
late,  the  early  lost  and  admirably  gifted  Keats. 

I  say  then  that  there  are  really  but  three  metres, 
— the  ten-syllable  couplet,  blank  verse,  and  a  third 
metre  which  I  will  not  yet  name,  but  which  is  neither 
1  TJie  Faery  Queen,  Canto  ii.  stanza  1. 


204  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

the  Spenserian  stanza  nor  any  form  of  ballad-verse, 
— between  which,  as  vehicles  for  Homer's  poetry,  the 
translator  has  to  make  his  choice.  Every  one  will  at 
once  remember  a  thousand  passages  in  which  both 
the  ten-syllable  couplet  and  blank  verse  prove  them- 
selves to  have  nobleness.  Undoubtedly  the  move- 
ment and  manner  of  this, — 

"  Still  raise  for  good  the  supplicating  voice, 
But  leave  to  Heaven  the  measure  and  the  choice," — 

are  noble.     Undoubtedly,  the  movement  and  manner 

of  this  : — 

"  High  on  a  throne  of  royal  state,  which  far 
Outshone  the  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind,"— 

are  noble  also.  But  the  first  is  in  a  rhymed  metre ;  and 
the  unfitness  of  a  rhymed  metre  for  rendering  Homer  I 
have  already  shown.  I  will  observe,  too,  that  the  fine 
couplet  which  I  have  quoted  comes  out  of  a  satire,  a 
didactic  poem;  and  that  it  is  in  didactic  poetry  that  the 
ten-syllable  couplet  has  most  successfully  essayed  the 
grand  style.  In  narrative  poetry  this  metre  has  suc- 
ceeded best  when  it  essayed  a  sensibly  lower  style,  the 
style  of  Chaucer,  for  instance;  whose  narrative  manner, 
though  a  very  good  and  sound  manner,  is  certainly 
neither  the  grand  manner  nor  the  manner  of  Homer. 
The  rhymed  ten-syllable  couplet  being  thus  ex- 
cluded, blank  verse  offers  itself  for  the  translator's 
use.  The  first  kind  of  blank  verse  which  naturally 
occurs  to  us  is  the  blank  verse  of  Milton,  which  has 
been  employed,  with  more  or  less  modification,  by 
Mr.  Cary  in  translating  Dante,  by  Cowper,  and  by 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  205 

Mr.  Wright  in  translating  Homer.  How  noble  this 
metre  is  in  Milton's  hands,  how  completely  it  shows 
itself  capable  of  the  grand,  nay,  of  the  grandest,  style, 
I  need  not  say.  To  this  metre,  as  used  in  the  Para- 
dise Lost,  our  country  owes  the  glory  of  having  pro- 
duced one  of  the  only  two  poetical  works  in  the 
grand  style  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  modern 
languages  ;  the  Divine  comedy  of  Dante  is  the  other. 
England  and  Italy  here  stand  alone  ;  Spain,  France, 
and  Germany,  have  produced  great  poets,  but  neither 
Calderon,  nor  Corneille,  nor  Schiller,  nor  even  Goethe, 
has  produced  a  body  of  poetry  in  the  true  grand  style, 
in  the  sense  in  which  the  style  of  the  body  of  Homer's 
poetry,  or  Pindar's,  or  Sophocles's,  is  grand.  But 
Dante  has,  and  so  has  Milton ;  and  in  this  respect 
Milton  possesses  a  distinction  which  even  Shakspeare, 
undoubtedly  the  supreme  poetical  power  in  our  litera- 
ture, does  not  share  with  him.  Not  a  tragedy  of 
Shakspeare  but  contains  passages  in  the  worst  .of 
all  styles,  the  affected  style ;  and  the  grand  style, 
although  it  may  be  harsh,  or  obscure,  or  cumbrous, 
or  over-laboured,  is  never  affected.  In  spite,  therefore, 
of  objections  which  may  justly  be  urged  against  the 
plan  and  treatment  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  in  spite  of 
its  possessing,  certainly,  a  far  less  enthralling  force  of 
interest  to  attract  and  to  carry  forward  the  reader  than 
the  Iliad  or  the  Divine  Comedy,  it  fully  deserves,  it  can 
never  lose,  its  immense  reputation  ;  for,  like  the  Iliad 
and  the  Divine  Comedy,  nay,  in  some  respects  to  a  higher 
degree  than  either  of  them,  it  is  in  the  grand  style. 
But  the  grandeur  of  Milton  is  one  thing,  and  the 


206  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

grandeur  of  Homer  is  another.  Homer's  movement, 
I  have  said  again  and  again,  is  a  flowing,  a  rapid 
movement;  Milton's,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  laboured, 
a  self-retarding  movement.  In  each  case,  the  move- 
ment, the  metrical  cast,  corresponds  with  the  mode  of 
evolution  of  the  thought,  with  the  syntactical  cast, 
and  is  indeed  determined  by  it.  Milton  charges  him- 
self so  full  with  thought,  imagination,  knowledge,  that 
his  style  will  hardly  contain  them.  He  is  too  full- 
stored  to  show  us  in  much  detail  one  conception,  one 
piece  of  knowledge ;  he  just  shows  it  to  us  in  a  preg- 
nant allusive  way,  and  then  he  presses  on  to  another; 
and  all  this  fulness,  this  pressure,  this  condensation, 
this  self-constraint,  enters  into  his  movement,  and 
makes  it  what  it  is,— noble,  but  difficult  and  austere. 
Homer  is  quite  different ;  he  says  a  thing,  and  says 
it  to  the  end,  and  then  begins  another,  while  Milton 
is  trying  to  press  a  thousand  things  into  one.  So 
that  whereas,  in  reading  Milton,  you  never  lose  the 
sense  of  laborious  and  condensed  fulness,  in  reading 
Homer  you  never  lose  the  sense  of  flowing  and  abound- 
ing ease.  With  Milton  line  runs  into  line,  and  all  is 
straitly  bound  together :  with  Homer  line  runs  off 
from  line,  and  all  hurries  away  onward.  Homer  begins, 
Wi]viv  aeiSe,  0ea, — at  the  second  word  announcing  the 
proposed  action  :  Miton  begins  : 

"  Of  man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree,  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  world,  and  all  our  woe, 
"With  loss  of  Eden,  till  one  greater  Man 
Restore  us,  and  regain  the  blissful  seat, 
Sing,  heavenly  muse. " 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  207 

So  chary  of  a  sentence  is  he,  so  resolute  not  to  let  it 
escape  him  till  he  has  crowded  into  it  all  he  can,  that 
it  is  not  till  the  thirty-ninth  word  in  the  sentence  that 
he  will  give  us  the  key  to  it,  the  word  of  action,  the 
verb.     Milton  says : 

"  O  for  that  warning  voice,  which  he,  who  saw 
The  Apocalypse,  heard  cry  in  heaven  aloud." 

He  is  not  satisfied,  unless  he  can  tell  us,  all  in  one 
sentence,  and  without  permitting  himself  to  actually 
mention  the  name,  that  the  man  who  had  the  warn- 
ing voice  was  the  same  man  who  saw  the  Apocalypse. 
Homer  would  have  said,  "0  for  that  warning  voice, 
which  John  heard," — and  if  it  had  suited  him  to  say 
that  John  also  saw  the  Apocalypse,  he  would  have 
<nven  us  that  in  another  sentence.  The  effect  of  this 
allusive  and  compressed  manner  of  Milton  is,  I  need 
not  say,  often  very  powerful ;  and  it  is  an  effect  which 
other  great  poets  have  often  sought  to  obtain  much 
in  the  same  way :  Dante  is  full  of  it,  Horace  is  full 
of  it;  but  wherever  it  exists,  it  is  always  an  un- 
Homeric  effect.  "The  losses  of  the  heavens,"  says 
Horace,  "  fresh  moons  speedily  repair ;  we,  when  we 
have  gone  down  where  the  pious  iEneas,  where  the 
rich  Tullus  and  Ancus  are, — pulvis  et  umbra  sumus." * 
He  never  actually  says  where  we  go  to ;  he  only  indi- 
cates it  by  saying  that  it  is  that  place  where  -ZEneas, 
Tullus,  and  Ancus  are.  But  Homer,  when  he  has  to 
speak  of  going  down  to  the  grave,  says,  definitely, 
e?  'HXva-tov  ireStov — o,Q6.vu.toi  irijxxpovo-LV^ — "The 
immortals  shall  send  thee  to  the  Ely sian  plain  ;"  and  it 
1  Odes,  IV.  vii.  13.  2  Odyssey,  iv.  563. 


208  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMEK. 

is  not  till  after  he  has  definitely  said  this,  that  he 
adds,  that  it  is  there  that  the  abode  of  departed  wor- 
thies is  placed  :  ode  £av#us  'PaSdfxavdvs, — "  Where  the 
yellow  -  haired  Bhadamanthus  is."  Again;  Horace, 
having  to  say  that  punishment  sooner  or  later  over- 
takes crime,  says  it  thus  : 

"Raro  anteeedentem  scelestum 
Deseruit  pede  Poena  claudo."1 

The  thought  itself  of  these  lines  is  familiar  enough  to 
Homer  and  Hesiod ;  but  neither  Homer  nor  Hesiod, 
in  expressing  it,  could  possibly  have  so  complicated 
its  expression  as  Horace  complicates  it,  and  purposely 
complicates  it,  by  his  use  of  the  word  deseruit.  I  say 
that  this  complicated  evolution  of  the  thought  neces- 
sarily complicates  the  movement  and  rhythm  of  a 
poet ;  and  that  the  Miltonic  blank  verse,  of  course  the 
first  model  of  blank  verse  which  suggests  itself  to  an 
English  translator  of  Homer,  bears  the  strongest  marks 
of  such  complication,  and  is  therefore  entirely  unfit  to 
render  Homer. 

If  blank  verse  is  used  in  translating  Homer,  it  must 
be  a  blank  verse  of  which  English  poetry,  naturally 
swayed  much  by  Milton's  treatment  of  this  metre, 
offers  at  present  hardly  any  examples.  It  must  not 
be  Cowper's  blank  verse,  who  has  studied  Milton's 
pregnant  manner  with  such  effect,  that,  having  to  say 
of  Mr.  Throckmorton  that  he  spares  his  avenue,  al- 
though it  is  the  fashion  with  other  people  to  cut  down 
theirs,  he  says  that  Benevolus  "reprieves  The  obso- 

1  Odes,  III.  ii.  31. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  209 

lete  prolixity  of  shade."     It  must  not  be  Mr.  Tenny- 
son's blank  verse. 

"For  all  experience  is  an  arch,  wherethrough 
Gleams  that  untravelled  world,  whose  distance  fades 
For  ever  and  for  ever,  as  we  gaze." 

It  is  no  blame  to  the  thought  of  those  lines,  which 
belongs  to  another  order  of  ideas  than  Homer's,  but  it 
is  true,  that  Homer  would  certainly  have  said  of  them, 
"It  is  to  consider  too  curiously  to  consider  so."  It 
is  no  blame  to  their  rhythm,  which  belongs  to  another 
order  of  movement  than  Homer's,  but  it  is  true  that 
these  three  lines  by  themselves  take  up  nearly  as  much 
time  as  a  whole  book  of  the  Iliad.  No ;  the  blank 
verse  used  in  rendering  Homer  must  be  a  blank  verse 
of  which  perhaps  the  best  specimens  are  to  be  found 
in  some  of  the  most  rapid  passages  of  Shakspeare's 
plays, — a  blank  verse  which  does  not  dovetail  its  lines 
into  one  another,  and  which  habitually  ends  its  lines 
with  monosyllables.  Such  a  blank  verse  might  no 
doubt  be  very  rapid  in  its  movement,  and  might  per- 
fectly adapt  itself  to  a  thought  plainly  and  directly 
evolved ;  and  it  would  be  interesting  to  see  it  well 
applied  to  Homer.  But  the  translator  who  deter- 
mines to  use  it,  must  not  conceal  from  himself  that 
in  order  to  pour  Homer  into  the  mould  of  this  metre, 
he  will  have  entirely  to  break  him  up  and  melt  him 
down,  with  the  hope  of  then  successfully  composing 
him  afresh ;  and  this  is  a  process  which  is  full  of 
risks.  It  may,  no  doubt,  be  the  veal  Homer  that 
issues  new  from  it ;  it  is  not  certain  beforehand  that 
it  cannot  be  the  real  Homer,  as  it  is  certain  that  from 
vol.  ii.  r 


210  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

the  mould  of  Pope's  couplet  or  Cowper's  Miltonic 
verse  it  cannot  be  the  real  Homer  that  will  issue; 
still,  the  chances  of  disappointment  are  great.  The 
result  of  such  an  attempt  to  renovate  the  old  poet 
may  be  an  ^Eson :  but  it  may  also,  and  more  probably 
will,  be  a  Pelias. 

When  I  say  this,  I  point  to  the  metre  which  seems 
to  me  to  give  the  translator  the  best  chance  of  pre- 
serving the  general  effect  of  Homer, — that  third  metre 
which  I  have  not  yet  expressly  named,  the  hexameter. 
I  know  all  that  is  said  against  the  use  of  hexameters 
in  English  poetry  ;  but  it  comes  only  to  this,  that, 
among  us,  they  have  not  yet  been  used  on  any  con- 
siderable scale  with  success.  Solvitur  ambulando:  this 
is  an  objection  which  can  best  be  met  by  producing 
good  English  hexameters.  And  there  is  no  reason  in 
the  nature  of  the  English  language  why  it  should  not 
adapt  itself  to  hexameters  as  well  as  the  German 
language  does;  nay,  the  English  language,  from  its 
greater  rapidity,  is  in  itself  better  suited  than  the 
German  for  them.  The  hexameter,  whether  alone  or 
with  the  pentameter,  possesses  a  movement,  an  ex- 
pression, which  no  metre  hitherto  in  common  use 
amongst  us  possesses,  and  which  I  am  convinced 
English  poetry,  as  our  mental  wants  multiply,  will 
not  always  be  content  to  forego.  Applied  to  Homer, 
this  metre  affords  to  the  translator  the  immense  sup- 
port of  keeping  him  more  nearly  than  any  other  metre 
to  Homer's  movement ;  and,  since  a  poet's  movement 
makes  so  large  a  part  of  his  general  effect,  and  to  re- 
produce this  general  effect  is  at  once  the  translator's 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  211 

indispensable  business  and  so  difficult  for  him,  it  is  a 
great  thing  to  have  this  part  of  your  model's  general 
effect  already  given  you  in  your  metre,  instead  of 
having  to  get  it  entirely  for  yourself. 

These  are  general  considerations ;  but  there  are 
also  one  or  two  particular  considerations  which  con- 
firm me  in  the  opinion  that  for  translating  Homer 
into  English  verse  the  hexameter  should  be  used. 
The  most  successful  attempt  hitherto  made  at  render- 
ing Homer  into  English,  the  attempt  in  which  Homer's 
general  effect  has  been  best  retained,  is  an  attempt 
made  in  the  hexameter  measure.  It  is  a  version  of 
the  famous  lines  in  the  third  book  of  the  Iliad,  which 
end  with  that  mention  of  Castor  and  Pollux  from 
which  Mr.  Euskin  extracts  the  sentimental  consola- 
tion already  noticed  by  me.  The  author  is  the 
accomplished  Provost  of  Eton,  Dr.  Hawtrey ;  and 
this  performance  of  his  must  be  my  excuse  for 
having  taken  the  liberty  to  single  him  out  for 
mention,  as  one  of  the  natural  judges  of  a  transla- 
tion of  Homer,  along  with  Professor  Thompson  and 
Professor  Jowett,  whose  connection  with  Greek  litera- 
ture  is   official.      The   passage   is   short;1  and  Dr. 

1  So  short,  that  I  quote  it  entire  : — 

"  Clearly  the  rest  I  behold  of  the  dark-eyed  sons  of  Achaia  ; 
Known  to  me  well  are  the  faces  of  all ;  their  names  I  remember  ; 
Two,  two  only  remain,  whom  I  see  not  among  the  commanders, 
Castor  fleet  in  the  car, — Polydeukes  brave  with  the  cestus, — 
Own  dear  brethren  of  mine, — one  parent  loved  us  as  infants. 
Are  they  not  here  in  the  host,  from  the  shores  of  loved  Lace- 

daemon, 
Or,  though  they  came  with  the  rest  in  ships  that  bound  through 

the  waters, 
Dare  they  not  enter  the  fight  or  stand  in  the  council  of  Heroes, 


212  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMEK. 

Hawtrey's  version  of  it  is  suffused  with  a  pensive 
grace  which  is,  perhaps,  rather  more  Virgilian  than 
Homeric;  still  it  is  the  one  version  of  any  part  of 
the  Iliad  which  in  some  degree  reproduces  for  me 
the  original  effect  of  Homer :  it  is  the  best,  and  it 
is  in  hexameters. 

This  is  one  of  the  particular  considerations  that 

All  for  fear  of  the  shame  and  the  taunts  my  crime  has  awakened  ? 
So   said   she ; — they  long   since   in  Earth's  soft  arms  were 
reposing, 
There,  in  their  own  dear  land,  their  Fatherland,  Lacedsemon." 
English  Hexameter  Translations;  London,  1847  ;  p.  242. 

I  have  changed  Dr.  Hawtrey's  "Kastor,"  "  Lakedaimon, " 
back  to  the  familiar  "Castor,"  " Lacedsemon, "  in  obedience  to 
my  own  rule  that  everything  odd  is  to  be  avoided  in  rendering 
Homer,  the  most  natural  and  least  odd  of  poets.  I  see  Mr. 
Newman's  critic  in  the  National  Review  urges  our  generation 
to  bear  with  the  unnatural  effect  of  these  rewritten  Greek  names, 
in  the  hope  that  by  this  means  the  effect  of  them  may  have  to 
the  next  generation  become  natural.  For  my  part,  I  feel  no 
disposition  to  pass  all  my  own  life  in  the  wilderness  of  pedantry, 
in  order  that  a  posterity  which  I  shall  never  see  may  one  day 
enter  an  orthographical  Canaan  ;  and,  after  all,  the  real  ques- 
tion is  this  :  whether  our  living  apprehension  of  the  Greek 
world  is  more  checked  by  meeting  in  an  English  book  about 
the  Greeks,  names  not  spelt  letter  for  letter  as  in  the  original 
Greek,  or  by  meeting  names  which  make  us  rub  our  eyes  and 
call  out,  "  How  exceedingly  odd  !" 

The  Latin  names  of  the  Greek  deities  raise  in  most  cases  the 
idea  of  quite  distinct  personages  from  the  personages  whose  idea 
is  raised  by  the  Greek  names.  Hera  and  Juno  are  actually,  to 
every  scholar's  imagination,  two  different  people.  So  in  all 
these  cases  the  Latin  names  must,  at  any  inconvenience,  be 
abandoned  when  we  are  dealing  with  the  Greek  world.  But  I 
think  it  can  be  in  the  sensitive  imagination  of  Mr.  Grote  only, 
that  "Thucydides"  raises  the  idea  of  a  different  man  from 
Qovicvdldys. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  213 

incline  me  to  prefer  the  hexameter,  for  translating 
Homer,  to  our  established  metres.  There  is  another. 
Most  of  you,  probably,  have  some  knowledge  of  a 
poem  by  Mr.  Clough,  The  Bothie  of  Toper-na- 
fuosich,  a  long -vacation  pastoral,  in  hexameters. 
The  general  merits  of  that  poem  I  am  not  going 
to  discuss ;  it  is  a  serio-comic  poem,  and,  therefore, 
of  essentially  different  nature  from  the  Iliad.  Still 
in  two  things  it  is,  more  than  any  other  English 
poem  which  I  can  call  to  mind,  like  the  Iliad:  in 
the  rapidity  of  its  movement,  and  the  plainness 
and  directness  of  its  style.  The  thought  in  this 
poem  is  often  curious  and  subtle,  and  that  is  not 
Homeric ;  the  diction  is  often  grotesque,  and  that 
is  not  Homeric.  Still,  by  its  rapidity  of  movement, 
and  plain  and  direct  manner  of  presenting  the 
thought  however  curious  in  itself,  this  poem,  which 
being  as  I  say  a  serio-comic  poem,  has  a  right  to  be 
grotesque,  is  grotesque  truly,  not,  like  Mr.  Newman's 
version  of  the  Iliad,  falsely.  Mr.  Clough's  odd 
epithets,  "The  grave  man  nicknamed  Adam,"  "The 
hairy  Aldrich,"  and  so  on,  grow  vitally  and  appear 
naturally  in  their  place  ;  while  Mr.  Newman's 
"  dapper -greaved  Achaians,"  and  "  motley -helmed 
Hector,"  have  all  the  air  of  being  mechanically 
elaborated  and  artificially  stuck  in.  Mr.  Clough's 
hexameters  are  excessively,  needlessly  rough;  still, 
owing  to  the  native  rapidity  of  this  measure,  and 
to  the  directness  of  style  which  so  well  allies  itself 
with  it,  his  composition  produces  a  sense  in  the 
reader   which    Homer's   composition    also   produces, 


214  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

and  which  Homer's  translator  ought  to  reproduce, 
— the  sense  of  having,  within  short  limits  of  time, 
a  large  portion  of  human  life  presented  to  him, 
instead  of  a  small  portion. 

Mr.  Clough's  hexameters  are,  as  I  have  just  said, 
too  rough  and  irregular;  and  indeed  a  good  model, 
on  any  considerable  scale,  of  this  metre,  the  English 
translator  will  nowhere  find.  He  must  not  follow 
the  model  offered  by  Mr.  Longfellow  in  his  pleasing 
and  popular  poem  of  Evangeline ;  for  the  merit  of 
the  manner  and  movement  of  Evangeline,  when  they 
are  at  their  best,  is  to  be  tenderly  elegant ;  and  their 
fault,  when  they  are  at  their  worst,  is  to  be  lumber- 
ing ;  but  Homer's  defect  is  not  lumberingness,  neither 
is  tender  elegance  his  excellence.  The  lumbering 
effect  of  most  English  hexameters  is  caused  by  their 
being  much  too  dactylic ; 1  the  translator  must  learn 
to  use  spondees  freely.  Mr.  Clough  has  done  this, 
but  he  has  not  sufficiently  observed  another  rule 
which  the  translator  cannot  follow  too  strictly ;  and 
that  is,  to  have  no  lines  which  will  not,  as  it  is 
familiarly  said,  read  themselves.  This  is  of  the  last 
importance  for  rhythms  with  which  the  ear  of  the 
English  public  is  not  thoroughly  acquainted.  Lord 
Redesdale,  in  two  papers  on  the  subject  of  Greek 
and  Roman  metres,  has  some  good  remarks  on  the 

1  For  instance  ;  in  a  version  (I  believe,  by  the  late  Mr. 
Lockbart)  of  Homer's  description  of  tbe  parting  of  Hector  and 
Andromache,  there  occurs,  in  the  first  five  lines,  but  one 
spondee  besides  the  necessary  spondees  in  the  sixth  place  ;  in 
the  corresponding  five  lines  of  Homer  there  occur  ten.  See 
Enalish  Hexameter  Translations,  244. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER,  215 

outrageous  disregard  of  quantity  in  which  English 
verse,  trusting  to  its  force  of  accent,  is  apt  to  indulge 
itself.  The  predominance  of  accent  in  our  language 
is  so  great,  that  it  would  be  pedantic  not  to  avail 
one's  self  of  it ;  and  Lord  Eedesdale  suggests  rules 
which  might  easily  be  pushed,  too  far.  Still,  it  is 
undeniable  that  in  English  hexameters  we  generally 
force  the  quantity  far  too  much ;  we  rely  on  justifica- 
tion by  accent  with  a  security  which  is  excessive. 
But  not  only  do  we  abuse  accent  by  shortening  long 
syllables  and  lengthening  short  ones ;  we  perpetually 
commit  a  far  worse  fault,  by  requiring  the  removal 
of  the  accent  from  its  natural  place  to  an  unnatural 
one,  in  order  to  make  our  line  scan.  This  is  a  fault, 
even  when  our  metre  is  one  which  every  English 
reader  knows,  and  when  he  can  see  what  we  want 
and  can  correct  the  rhythm  according  to  our  wish ; 
although  it  is  a  fault  which  a  great  master  may 
sometimes  commit  knowingly  to  produce  a  desired 
effect,  as  Milton  changes  the  natural  accent  on  the 
word  Tirhias  in  the  line  : — 

"  And  Tiresias  and  Phineus,  prophets  old  ;  " 

and  then  it  ceases  to  be  a  fault,  and  becomes  a 
beauty.     But  it  is  a  real  fault,  when  Chapman  has  : — 

"By  him  the  golden-throned  Queen  slept,  the  Queen  of  Deities;  " 

for  in  this  line,  to  make  it  scan,  you  have  to  take 
away  the  accent  from  the  word  Queen,  on  which  it 
naturally  falls,  and  to  place  it  on  throned,  which  would 
naturally  be  unaccented ;  and  yet,  after  all,  you  get 


216  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

no  peculiar  effect  or  beauty  of  cadence  to  reward  you. 
It  is  a  real  fault,  when  Mr  Newman  has : — 

"  Infatuate !  0  that  thou  wert  lord  to  some  other  army  " — 

for  here  again  the  reader  is  required,  not  for  any 
special  advantage  to  himself,  but  simply  to  save  Mr. 
Newman  trouble,  to  place  the  accent  on  the  insignifi- 
cant word  wert,  where  it  has  no  business  whatever. 
But  it  is  still  a  greater  fault,  when  Spenser  has  (to 
take  a  striking  instance) : — 

' '  Wot  ye  why  his  mother  with  a  veil  hath  covered  his  face  ? '; 

for  a  hexameter ;  because  here  not  only  is  the  readei 
causelessly  required  to  make  havoc  with  the  natural 
accentuation  of  the  line  in  order  to  get  it  to  run  as  a 
hexameter ;  but  also  he,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  will 
be  utterly  at  a  loss  how  to  perform  the  process 
required,  and  the  line  will  remain  a  mere  monster  for 
him.  I  repeat,  it  is  advisable  to  construct  all  verses 
so  that  by  reading  them  naturally — that  is,  according 
to  the  sense  and  legitimate  accent, — the  reader  gets 
the  right  rhythm ;  but,  for  English  hexameters,  that 
they  be  so  constructed  is  indispensable. 

If  the  hexameter  best  helps  the  translator  to  the 
Homeric  rapidity,  what  style  may  best  help  him  to  the 
Homeric  plainness  and  directness  1  It  is  the  merit  of 
a  metre  appropriate  to  your  subject,  that  it  in  some 
degree  suggests  and  carries  with  itself  a  style  appro- 
priate to  the  subject ;  the  elaborate  and  self-retarding 
style,  which  comes  so  naturally  when  your  metre  is 
the  Miltonic  blank  verse,  does  not  come  naturally 
with  the  hexameter;  is,  indeed,  alien  to  it.     On  the 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  217 

other  hand,  the  hexameter  has  a  natural  dignity 
which  repels  both  the  jaunty  style  and  the  jog-trot 
style,  to  both  of  which  the  ballad-measure  so  easily 
lends  itself.  These  are  great  advantages ;  and, 
perhaps,  it  is  nearly  enough  to  say  to  the  translator 
who  uses  the  hexameter  that  he  cannot  too  religiously 
follow,  in  style,  the  inspiration  of  his  metre.  He  will 
find  that  a  loose  and  idiomatic  grammar — a  grammar 
which  follows  the  essential  rather  than  the  formal 
logic  of  the  thought — allies  itself  excellently  with  the 
hexameter ;  and  that,  while  this  sort  of  grammar 
ensures  plainness  and  naturalness,  it  by  no  means 
comes  short  in  nobleness.  It  is  difficult  to  pronounce, 
certainly,  what  is  idiomatic  in  the  ancient  literature 
of  a  language  which,  though  still  spoken,  has  long 
since  entirely  adopted,  as  modern  Greek  has  adopted, 
modern  idioms.  Still  one  may,  I  think,  clearly 
perceive  that  Homer's  grammatical  style  is  idiomatic, 
— that  it  may  even  be  called,  not  improperly,  a  loose 
grammatical  style.1  Examples,  however,  of  what  I 
mean  by  a  loose  grammatical  style,  will  be  of  more 
use  to  the  translator  if  taken  from  English  poetry 
than  if  taken  from  Homer.  I  call  it,  then,  a  loose 
and  idiomatic  grammar  which  Shakspeare  uses  in  the 
last  line  of  the  following  three  : — 


1  See,  for  instance,  in  the  Iliad,  the  loose  construction  of  Sore, 
xvii.  658  ;  that  of  tooiro,  xvii.  681  ;  that  of  ol're,  xviii.  209  ;  and 
the  elliptical  construction  at  xix.  42,  43  ;  also  the  idiomatic 
construction  of  iywv  8de  irapaax^f,  xix.  140.  These  instances 
are  all  taken  within  a  range  of  a  thousand  Hues ;  any  one  may 
easily  multiply  them  for  himself. 


218  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

"  He's  here  in  double  trust : 
First,  as  I  am  his  kinsman  and  his  subject, 
Strong  both  against  the  deed  ;  " — 

or  in  this  : — 

"Wit,  whither  wilt  ?" 

What  Shakspeare  means  is  perfectly  clear,  clearer, 
probably,  than  if  he  had  said  it  in  a  more  formal  and 
regular  manner ;  but  his  grammar  is  loose  and  idio- 
matic, because  he  leaves  out  the  subject  of  the  verb 
"  wilt "  in  the  second  passage  quoted,  and  because,  in 
the  first,  a  prodigious  addition  to  the  sentence  has  to 
be,  as  we  used  to  say  in  our  old  Latin  grammar  days, 
understood,  before  the  word  "both"  can  be  properly 
parsed.  So,  again,  Chapman's  grammar  is  loose  and 
idiomatic  where  he  says, 

"Even  share  hath  he  that  keeps  his  tent,  and/je  to  field  doth  go," — 

because  he  leaves  out,  in  the  second  clause,  the 
relative  which  in  formal  writing  would  be  required. 
But  Chapman  here  does  not  lose  dignity  by  this 
idiomatic  way  of  expressing  himself,  any  more  than 
Shakspeare  loses  it  by  neglecting  to  confer  on 
"  both "  the  blessings  of  a  regular  government : 
neither  loses  dignity,  but  each  gives  that  impression 
of  a  plain,  direct,  and  natural  mode  of  speaking,  which 
Homer,  too,  gives,  and  which  it  is  so  important,  as  I 
say,  that  Homer's  translator  should  succeed  in  giving. 
Cowper  calls  blank  verse  "a  style  further  removed 
than  rhyme  from  the  vernacular  idiom,  both  in  the 
language  itself  and  in  the  arrangement  of  it ; "  and 
just  in  proportion  as  blank  verse  is  removed  from  the 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  219 

vernacular  idiom,  from  that  idiomatic  style  which  is 
of  all  styles  the  plainest  and  most  natural,  blank  verse 
is  unsuited  to  render  Homer. 

Shakspeare  is  not  only  idiomatic  in  his  grammar 
or  style,  he  is  also  idiomatic  in  his  words  or  diction ; 
and  here,  too,  his  example  is  valuable  for  the  trans- 
lator of  Homer.     The  translator  must  not,  indeed, 
allow  himself  all  the  liberty  that  Shakspeare  allows 
himself;  for  Shakspeare  sometimes  uses  expressions 
which  pass  perfectly  well  as  he  uses  them,  because 
Shakspeare  thinks  so  fast  and  so  powerfully,  that  in 
reading  him  we  are  borne  over  single  words  as  by  a 
mighty  current ;  but,  if  our  mind  were  less  excited, — 
and  who  may  rely  on  exciting  our  mind  like  Shak- 
speare 1 — they  would  check  us.     "  To  grunt  and  sweat 
under  a  weary  load ; " — that  does  perfectly  well  where 
it  comes  in  Shakspeare;  but  if  the  translator  of  Homer, 
who  will  hardly  have  wound  our  minds  up  to  the 
pitch  at  which  these  words  of  Hamlet  find  them, 
were  to  employ,  when  he  has  to  speak  of  one  of 
Homer's  heroes  under  the  load  of  calamity,  this  figure 
of  "  grunting  "  and  "  sweating,"  we  should  say,  He 
Newmanises,  and  his  diction  would  offend  us.     For  he 
is  to  be  noble ;  and  no  plea  of  wishing  to  be  plain 
and  natural  can  get  him  excused  from  being  this: 
only,  as  he  is  to  be  also,  like  Homer,  perfectly  simple 
and  free  from  artificiality,  and  as  the  use  of  idiomatic 
expressions  undoubtedly  gives  this  effect,1  he  should 

1  Our  knowledge  of  Homer's  Greek  is  hardly  such  as  to 
enable  us  to  pronounce  quite  confidently  what  is  idiomatic  in 
his  diction,  and  what  is  not,  anymore  than  in  his  grammar; 


220  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

be  as  idiomatic  as  he  can  be  without  ceasing  to  be 
noble.  Therefore  the  idiomatic  language  of  Shak- 
speare — such  language  as,  "  prate  of  his  whereabout ;  " 
"jump  the  life  to  come ; "  "  the  damnation  of  his 
taking-off;  "  "  his  quietus  make  with  a  bare  bodkin  " — 
should  be  carefully  observed  by  the  translator  of 
Homer,  although  in  every  case  he  will  have  to  decide 
for  himself  whether  the  use,  by  him,  of  Shakspeare's 
liberty,  will  or  will  not  clash  with  his  indispensable 
duty  of  nobleness.  He  will  find  one  English  book 
and  one  only,  where,  as  in  the  Iliad  itself,  perfect 
plainness  of  speech  is  allied  with  perfect  nobleness ; 
and  that  book  is  the  Bible.  No  one  could  see  this 
more  clearly  than  Pope  saw  it :  "  This  pure  and  noble 
simplicity,"  he  says,  "is  nowhere  in  such  perfection 
as  in  the  Scripture  and  Homer : "  yet  even  with  Pope 
a  woman  is  a  "fair,"  a  father  is  a  "sire,"  and  an  old 
man  a  "reverend  sage,"  and  so  on  through  all  the 
phrases  of  that  pseudo-Augustan,  and  most  unbiblical, 
vocabulary.  The  Bible,  however,  is  undoubtedly  the 
grand  mine  of  diction  for  the  translator  of  Homer ; 
and,  if  he  knows  how  to  discriminate  truly  between 
what  will  suit  him  and  what  will  not,  the  Bible  may 
afford  him  also  invaluable  lessons  of  style. 

I  said  that  Homer,  besides  being  plain  in  style  and 

but  I  seem  to  myself  clearly  to  recognise  an  idiomatic  stamp  in 
such  expressions  as  To\vire<jeiv  iroKijxovs,  xiv.  86 ;  <f>dos  ev  v-fjeaaiv 
Orjrjs,  xvi.  94  ;  tiv  o'ioi  cunraalws  clvtCjv  ybvv  Ka/xiJ/eLv,  xix.  71  ; 
K\oToweveiv,  xix.  149  ;  and  many  others.  The  first-quoted  ex- 
pression, To\vireijeii>  apydXiovs  TroXtfiovs,  seems  to  me  to  have 
just  about  the  same  degree  of  freedom  as  the  "jump  the  life  to 
come,"  or  the  "shuffle  q^this  mortal  coil,"  of  Shakspeare. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  22] 

diction,  was  plain  in  the  quality  of  his  thought.  It 
is  possible  that  a  thought  may  be  expressed  with 
idiomatic  plainness,  and  yet  not  be  in  itself  a  plain 
thought.  For  example,  in  Mr.  Clough's  poem,  already 
mentioned,  the  style  and  diction  is  almost  always 
idiomatic  and  plain,  but  the  thought  itself  is  often  of 
a  quality  which  is  not  plain ;  it  is  curious.  But  the 
grand  instance  of  the  union  of  idiomatic  expression 
with  curious  or  difficult  thought  is  in  Shakspeare's 
poetry.  Such,  indeed,  is  the  force  and  power  of 
Shakspeare's  idiomatic  expression,  that  it  gives  an 
effect  of  clearness  and  vividness  even  to  a  thought 
which  is  imperfect  and  incoherent ;  for  instance,  when 
Hamlet  says, — 

"To  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles," — 

the  figure  there  is  undoubtedly  most  faulty,  it  by  no 
means  runs  on  four  legs;  but  the  thing  is  said  so 
freely  and  idiomatically,  that  it  passes.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  a  point  to  which  I  now  want  to  call  your 
attention ;  I  want  you  to  remark,  in  Shakspeare  and 
others,  only  that  which  we  may  directly  apply  to 
Homer.  I  say,  then,  that  in  Shakspeare  the  thought 
is  often,  while  most  idiomatically  uttered,  nay,  while 
good  and  sound  in  itself,  yet  of  a  quality  which  is 
curious  and  difficult ;  and  that  this  quality  of  thought 
is  something  entirely  un- Homeric.  For  example, 
when  Lady  Macbeth  says, — - 

"Memory,  the  warder  of  the  brain, 
Shall  be  a  fume,  and  the  receipt  of  reason 
A  limbeck  only," — 


222  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

this  figure  is  a  perfectly  sound  and  correct  figure,  no 
doubt;  Mr.  Knight  even  calls  it  a  "happy"  figure; 
but  it  is  a  difficult  figure  :  Homer  would  not  have 
used  it.     Again,  when  Lady  Macbeth  says, — 

"  When  you  durst  do  it,  then  you  were  a  man  ; 
And,  to  be  more  than  what  you  were,  you  would 
Be  so  much  more  the  man," — 

the  thought  in  the  two  last  of  these  lines  is,  when 
you  seize  it,  a  perfectly  clear  thought,  and  a  fine 
thought ;  but  it  is  a  curious  thought :  Homer  would 
not  have  used  it.  These  are  favourable  instances  of 
the  union  of  plain  style  and  words  with  a  thought 
not  plain  in  quality ;  but  take  stronger  instances 
of  this  union, — let  the  thought  be  not  only  not 
plain  in  quality,  but  highly  fanciful :  and  you  have 
the  Elizabethan  conceits ;  you  have,  in  spite  of  idio- 
matic style  and  idiomatic  diction,  everything  which 
is  most  un-Homeric ;  you  have  such  atrocities  as  this 
of  Chapman  : — 

' '  Fate  shall  fail  to  vent  her  gall 
Till  mine  vent  thousands. " 

I  say,  the  poets  of  a  nation  which  has  produced  such 
conceit  as  that,  must  purify  themselves  seven  times 
in  the  fire  before  they  can  hope  to  render  Homer. 
They  must  expel  their  nature  with  a  fork,  and  keep 
crying  to  one  another  night  and  day :  "  Homer  not 
only  moves  rapidly,  not  only  speaks  idiomatically ;  he 
is,  also,  free  from  fanciftdness." 

So  essentially  characteristic  of  Homer  is  his  plain- 
ness and  naturalness  of  thought,  that  to  the  preserva- 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  223 

tion  of  this  in  his  own  version  the  translator  must 
without  scruple  sacrifice,  where  it  is  necessary,  verbal 
fidelity  to  his  original,  rather  than  run  any  risk  of 
producing,  by  literalness,  an  odd  and  unnatural  effect. 
The  double  epithets  so  constantly  occurring  in  Homer 
must  be  dealt  with  according  to  this  rule ;  these 
epithets  come  quite  naturally  in  Homer's  poetry ;  in 
English  poetry  they,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  come, 
when  literally  rendered,  quite  unnaturally.  I  will 
not  now  discuss  why  this  is  so,  I  assume  it  as  an  in- 
disputable fact  that  it  is  so  ;  that  Homer's  jiepo-n-wv 
dv9p(x>irwv  comes  to  the  reader  as  something  perfectly 
natural,  while  Mr.  Newman's  "  voice-dividing  mortals  " 
comes  to  him  as  something  perfectly  unnatural.  Well 
then,  as  it  is  Homer's  general  effect  which  we  are  to 
reproduce,  it  is  to  be  false  to  Homer  to  be  so  verbally 
faithful  to  him  as  that  we  lose  this  effect :  and  by  the 
Euglish  translator  Homer's  double  epithets  must  be, 
in  many  places,  renounced  altogether;  in  all  places 
where  they  are  rendered,  rendered  by  equivalents 
which  come  naturally.  Instead  of  rendering  Gen 
ravvTrerrXe  by  Mr.  Newman's  "  Thetis  trailing-robed," 
which  brings  to  one's  mind  long  petticoats  sweeping 
a  dirty  pavement,  the  translator  must  render  the 
Greek  by  English  words  which  come  as  naturally  to 
us  as  Milton's  words  when  he  says,  "Let  gorgeous 
Tragedy  With  sceptred  pall  come  sweeping  by."  In- 
stead of  rendering  fj,u,wxa<s  tWovs  by  Chapman's 
"one-hoofed  steeds,"  or  Mr.  Newman's  "single-hoofed 
horses,"  he  must  speak  of  horses  in  a  way  Avhich  sur- 
prises us  as  little  as  Shakspeare  surprises  us  when  ho 


224  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

says,  "Gallop  apace,  you  fiery -footed  steeds. "  Instead 
of  rendering  /itXi^Sea  Ovfxov  by  "  life  as  honey  plea- 
sant," he  must  characterise  life  with  the  simple  pathos 
of  Gray's  "warm  precincts  of  the  cheerful  day."  In- 
stead of  converting  ttolov  <xe  eVos  </>uyei/  epxos  oSovtwv  ; 
into  the  portentous  remonstrance,  "  Betwixt  the  out- 
work of  thy  teeth  what  word  hath  slipt  1 "  he  must 
remonstrate  in  English  as  straightforward  as  this  of 
St.  Peter,  "Be  it  far  from  thee,  Lord,  this  shall  not 
be  unto  thee;"  or  as  this  of  the  disciples,  "What 
is  this  that  he  saith,  a  little  while?  we  cannot  tell 
what  he  saith."  Homer's  Greek,  in  each  of  the  places 
quoted,  reads  as  naturally  as  any  of  those  English 
passages :  the  expression  no  more  calls  away  the  at- 
tention from  the  sense  in  the  Greek  than  in  the 
English.  But  when,  in  order  to  render  literally  in 
English  one  of  Homer's  double  epithets,  a  strange 
unfamiliar  adjective  is  invented, — such  as  "voice- 
dividing"  for  /xepoips, — an  improper  share  of  the 
reader's  attention  is  necessarily  diverted  to  this  an- 
cillary word,  to  this  word  which  Homer  never  intended 
should  receive  so  much  notice ;  and  a  total  effect 
quite  different  from  Homer's  is  thus  produced.  There- 
fore Mr.  Newman,  though  he  does  not  purposely 
import,  like  Chapman,  conceits  of  his  own  into  the 
Iliad,  does  actually  import  them ;  for  the  result  of 
his  singular  diction  is  to  raise  ideas,  and  odd  ideas, 
not  raised  by  the  corresponding  diction  in  Homer; 
and  Chapman  himself  does  no  more.  Cowper  says : 
"  I  have  cautiously  avoided  all  terms  of  new  inven- 
tion, with  an  abundance  of  which  persons  of  more 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  225 

ingenuity  than  judgment  have  not  enriched  our  lan- 
guage but  encumbered  it ; "  and  this  criticism  so 
exactly  hits  the  diction  of  Mr.  Newman,  that  one  is 
irresistibly  led  to  imagine  his  present  appearance  in 
the  flesh  to  be  at  least  his  second. 

A  translator  cannot  well  have  a  Homeric  rapidity, 
style,  diction,  and  quality  of  thought,  without  at  the 
same  time  having  what  is  the  result  of  these  in  Homer, 
— nobleness.  Therefore  I  do  not  attempt  to  lay  down 
any  rules  for  obtaining  this  effect  of  nobleness, — the 
effect,  too,  of  all  others  the  most  impalpable,  the  most 
irreducible  to  rule,  and  which  most  depends  on  the 
individual  personality  of  the  artist.  So  I  proceed  at 
once  to  give  you,  in  conclusion,  one  or  two  passages 
in  which  I  have  tried  to  follow  those  principles  of 
Homeric  translation  which  I  have  laid  down.  I  give 
them,  it  must  be  remembered,  not  as  specimens  of 
perfect  translation,  but  as  specimens  of  an  attempt 
to  translate  Homer  on  certain  principles ;  specimens 
which  may  very  aptly  illustrate  those  principles  by 
falling  short  as  well  as  by  succeeding. 

I  take  first  a  passage  of  which  I  have  already  spoken, 
the  comparison  of  the  Trojan  fires  to  the  stars.  The 
first  part  of  that  passage  is,  I  have  said,  of  splendid 
beauty  ;  and  to  begin  with  a  lame  version  of  that 
would  be  the  height  of  imprudence  in  me.  It  is  the 
last  and  more  level  part  with  which  I  shall  concern 
myself.  I  have  already  quoted  Cowper's  version  of 
this  part  in  order  to  show  you  how  unlike  his  stiff 
and  Miltonic  manner  of  telling  a  plain  story  is  to 
Homer's  easy  and  rapid  manner : — 

VOL.  II.  y 


226  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

' '  So  numerous  seemed  those  fires  the  bank  between 
Of  Xanthus,  blazing,  and  the  fleet  of  Greece, 
In  prospect  all  of  Troy  " — 

I  need  not  continue  to  the  end.  I  have  also  quoted 
Pope's  version  of  it,  to  show  you  how  unlike  his 
ornate  and  artificial  manner  is  to  Homer's  plain  and 
natural  manner : 

"  So  many  flames  before  proud  Ilion  blaze, 
And  brighten  glimmering  Xanthus  with  their  rays  ; 
The  long  reflections  of  the  distant  fires 
Gleam  on  the  walls,  and  tremble  on  the  spires," — 

and  much  more  of  the  same  kind.  I  want  to  show 
you  that  it  is  possible,  in  a  plain  passage  of  this  sort, 
to  keep  Homer's  simplicity  without  being  heavy  and 
dull ;  and  to  keep  his  dignity  without  bringing  in 
pomp  and  ornament.  "  As  numerous  as  are  the  stars 
on  a  clear  night,"  says  Homer, 

"  So  shone  forth,  in  front  of  Troy,  by  the  bed  of  Xanthus, 
Between  that  and  the  ships,  the  Trojans'  numerous  fires. 
In  the  plain  there  were  kindled  a  thousand  fires  :  by  each  one 
There  sat  fifty  men,  in  the  ruddy  light  of  the  fire  : 
By  their  chariots  stood  the  steeds,  and  champed  the  white 

barley 
"While  their  masters  sat  by  the  fire,  and  waited  for  Morning." 

Here,  in  order  to  keep  Homer's  effect  of  perfect  plain- 
ness and  directness,  I  repeat  the  word  "  fires  "  as  he 
repeats  -n-vpd,  without  scruple ;  although  in  a  more 
elaborate  and  literary  style  of  poetry  this  recurrence 
of  the  same  word  would  be  a  fault  to  be  avoided.  I 
omit  the  epithet  of  Morning,  and,  whereas  Homer 
says  that  the  steeds  "waited  for  Morning,"  I  prefer 
to  attribute  this  expectation  of  Morning  to  the  master 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  227 

and  not  to  the  horse.  Very  likely  in  this  particular, 
as  in  any  other  single  particular,  I  may  be  wrong : 
what  I  wish  you  to  remark  is  my  endeavour  after 
absolute  plainness  of  speech,  my  care  to  avoid  any- 
thing which  may  the  least  check  or  surprise  the 
reader,  whom  Homer  does  not  check  or  surprise. 
Homer's  lively  personal  familiarity  with  war,  and 
with  the  war-horse  as  his  master's  companion,  is  such 
that,  as  it  seems  to  me,  his  attributing  to  the  one  the 
other's  feelings  comes  to  us  quite  naturally  ;  but,  from 
a  poet  without  this  familiarity,  the  attribution  strikes 
as  a  little  unnatural ;  and  therefore,  as  everything  the 
least  unnatural  is  un-Homeric,  I  avoid  it. 

Again,  in  the  address  of  Zeus  to  the  horses  of 
Achilles,  Cowper  has : 

"  Jove  saw  their  grief  with  pity,  and  his  brows 
Shakiug,  within  himself  thus,  pensive,  said. 

'  Ah  hapless  pair  !  wherefore  by  gift  divine 
Were  ye  to  Peleus  given,  a  mortal  king, 
Yourselves  immortal  and  from  age  exempt  ? '  " 

There  is  no  want  of  dignity  here,  as  in  the  versions 
of  Chapman  and  Mr.  Newman,  Avhich  I  have  already 
quoted  ;  but  the  whole  effect  is  much  too  slow.  Take 
Pope  :— 

' '  Nor  Jove  disdained  to  cast  a  pitying  look 

While  thus  relenting  to  the  steeds  he  spoke. 
'  Unhappy  coursers  of  immortal  strain  ! 

Exempt  from  age  and  deathless  now  in  vain  ; 

Did  we  your  race  on  mortal  man  bestow 

Only,  alas  !  to  share  in  mortal  woe  ? '  " 

Here  there  is  no  want  either  of  dignity  or  rapidity, 
but  all  is  too  artificial.     "  Nor  Jove  disdained,"  for  in- 


228  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

stance,  is  a  very  artificial  and  literary  way  of  rendering 
Homer's  words,  and  so  is,  "coursers  of  immortal  strain." 

Mvpofievu  8'  &pa  Tih  ye  I8tbv,  iXerjae  Kpovtuv, — 
"  And  with  pity  the  son  of  Saturn  saw  them  bewailing, 
And  he  shook  his  head,  and  thus  addressed  his  own  bosom  : — 

'  Ah,  unhappy  pair,  to  Peleus  why  did  we  give  you 
To  a  mortal  ?  but  ye  are  without  old  age  and  immortal. 
Was  it  that  ye,  with  man,  might  have  your  thousands  of 

sorrows  ? 
For  than  man,  indeed,  there  breathes  no  wretcheder  creature, 
Of  all  living  things,  that  on  earth  are  breathing  and  moving.' " 

Here  I  will  observe  that  the  use  of  "  own,"  in  the 
second  line,  for  the  last  syllable  of  a  dactyl,  and  the 
use  of  "  To  a,"  in  the  fourth,  for  a  complete  spondee, 
though  they  do  not,  I  think,  actually  spoil  the  run  of 
the  hexameter,  are  yet  undoubtedly  instances  of  that 
over -reliance  on  accent,  and  too  free  disregard  of 
quantity,  which  Lord  Eedesdale  visits  with  just  re- 
prehension. x 

1  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that,  if  we  disregard 
quantity  too  much  in  constructing  English  hexameters,  we  also 
disregard  accent  too  much  in  reading  Greek  hexameters.  We 
read  every  Greek  dactyl  so  as  to  make  a  pure  dactyl  of  it ;  but, 
to  a  Greek,  the  accent  must  have  hindered  many  dactyls  from 
sounding  as  pure  dactyls.  When  we  read  at6\os  'iiriros,  for 
instance,  or  alyi6xoio,  the  dactyl  in  each  of  these  cases  is 
made  by  us  as  pure  a  dactyl  as  " Tityre,"  or  "dignity  ;  "  but  to 
a  Greek  it  was  not  so.  To  him  al6\os  must  have  been  nearly  as 
impure  a  dactyl  as  "  death-destined  "  is  to  us  ;  and  alyi6x  nearly 
as  impure  as  the  "dressed  his  own  "  of  my  text.  Nor,  I  think, 
does  this  right  mode  of  pronouncing  the  two  words  at  all  spoil 
the  run  of  the  line  as  a  hexameter.  The  effect  of  alSWos  iwttos 
(or  something  like  that),  though  not  our  effect,  is  not  a  disagree- 
able one.  On  the  other  hand,  Kopv0ai6\os  as  a  paroxytonon, 
although  it  has  the  respectable  authority  of  Liddell  and  Scott's 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  229 

I  now  take  two  longer  passages  in  order  to  try  my 
method  more  fully ;  but  I  still  keep  to  passages  which 
have  already  come  under  our  notice.  I  quoted  Chap- 
man's version  of  some  passages  in  the  speech  of  Hector 
at  his  parting  with  Andromache.  One  astounding  con- 
ceit will  probably  still  be  in  your  remembrance, — 

"  When  sacred  Troy  shall  shed  her  tow' rs  for  tears  of  overthrow," — 

as  a  translation  of  6V  av  ttot  okuXy  "IAio?  Ip-q.  I  will 
quote  a  few  lines  which  may  give  you,  also,  the  key- 
note to  the  Anglo-Augustan  manner  of  rendering  this 
passage  and  to  the  Miltonic  manner  of  rendering  it. 
What  Mr.  Newman's  manner  of  rendering  it  would 
be,  you  can  by  this  time  sufficiently  imagine  for  your- 
selves. Mr.  Wright, — to  quote  for  once  from  his 
meritorious  version  instead  of  Cowper's,  whose  strong 
and  weak  points  are  those  of  Mr.  Wright  also, — Mr. 
Wright  begins  his  version  of  this  passage  thus  : 

"  All  these  thy  anxious  cares  are  also  mine, 
Partner  beloved  ;  but  how  could  I  endure 
The  scorn  of  Trojans  and  their  long-robed  wives, 
Should  they  behold  their  Hector  shrink  from  war, 
And  act  the  coward's  part  ?     Nor  doth  my  soul 
Prompt  the  base  thought." 

Expede  llerculem:  you  see  just  what  the  manner 


is. 


Lexicon  (following  Heyne),  is  certainly  wrong  ;  for  then  the 
word  cannot  be  pronounced  without  throwing  an  accent  on  the 
first  syllable  as  well  as  the  third,  and  fieyas  KoppvOaidWos 
"E/ctw/3  would  have  been  to  a  Greek  as  intolerable  an  ending  for 
a  hexameter  line  as  "accurst  orphanhood  -destined  houses" 
would  be  to  us.  The  best  authorities,  accordingly,  accent  Kopv 
daioXos  as  a  proparoxytonon. 


230  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

Mr.  Sotheby,  on  the  other  hand  (to  take  a  disciple  of 
Pope  instead  of  Pope  himself),  begins  thus  : 

"  '  What  moves  thee,  moves  my  mind,'  brave  Hector  said, 
'  Yet  Troy's  upbraiding  scorn  I  deeply  dread, 
If,  like  a  slave,  where  chiefs  with  chiefs  engage, 
The  warrior  Hector  fears  the  war  to  wage. 
Not  thus  my  heart  inclines.'  " 

From  that  specimen,  too,  you  can  easily  divine  what, 
with  such  a  manner,  will  become  of  the  whole  passage. 
But  Homer  has  neither 

"What  moves  thee,  moves  my  mind," — 

nor  has  he 

"All  these  thy  anxious  cares  are  also  mine." 
'H  Kal  ifjLol  r&de  iravra  jitAei,  yvvai'  d\\a  /xd\'  aivQs, — 

that  is  what  Homer  has,  that  is  his  style  and  move- 
ment, if  one  could  but  catch  it.  Andromache,  as 
you  know,  has  been  entreating  Hector  to  defend 
Troy  from  within  the  walls,  instead  of  exposing  his 
life,  and,  with  his  own  life,  the  safety  of  all  those 
dearest  to  him,  by  fighting  in  the  open  plain.  Hector 
replies : — 

"  Woman,  I  too  take  thought  for  this  ;  but  then  I  bethink  me 
What  the  Trojan  men  and  Trojan  women  might  murmur, 
If  like  a  coward  I  skulked  behind,  apart  from  the  battle. 
Nor  would  my  own  heart  let  me ;  my  heart,  which  has  bid 

me  be  valiant 
Always,  and  always  fighting  among  the  first  of  the  Trojans, 
Busy  for  Priam's  fame  and  my  own,  in  spite  of  the  future. 
For  that  day  will  come,  my  soul  is  assured  of  its  coming, 
It  will  come,  when  sacred  Troy  shall  go  to  destruction, 
Troy,  and  warlike  Priam  too,  and  the  people  of  Priam. 
And  yet  not  that  grief,  which  then  will  be,  of  the  Trojans, 
Moves  me  so  much — not  Hecuba's  grief,  nor  Priam  my  father's, 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  231 

Nor  my  brethren's,  many  and  brave,  who  then  will  be  lying 
In  the  bloody  dust,  beneath  the  feet  of  their  foemen — 
As  thy  grief,  when,  in  tears,  some  brazen-coated  Achaian 
Shall  transport  thee  away,  and  the  day  of  thy  freedom  be 

ended. 
Then,  perhaps,  thou  shalt  work  at  the  loom  of  another,  in 

Argos, 
Or  bear  pails  to  the  well  of  Messei's,  or  Hypereia, 
Sorely  against  thy  will,  by  strong  Necessity's  order. 
And  some  man  may  say,  as  he  looks  and  sees  thy  tears  falling: 
Sec,  the  wife  of  Hector,  that  great  pre-eminent  captain 
Of  the  horsemen  of  Troy,  in  the  day  they  fought  for  their  city. 
So  some  man  will  say  ;  and  then  thy  grief  will  redouble 
At  thy  want  of  a  man  like  me,  to  save  thee  from  bondage. 
But  let  me  be  dead,  and  the  earth  be  mounded  above  me, 
Ere  I  hear  thy  cries,  and  thy  captivity  told  of." 

The  main  question,  whether  or  no  this  version 
reproduces  for  him  the  movement  and  general  effect 
of  Homer  better  than  other  versions1  of  the  same 
passage,  I  leave  for  the  judgment  of  the  scholar. 
But  the  particular  points,  in  which  the  operation  of 
my  own  rules  is  manifested,  are  as  follows.  In  the 
second  line  I  leave  out  the  epithet  of  the  Trojan 
women,  eAKecri7re7rAovs,  altogether.  In  the  sixth  line 
I  put  in  five  words,  "in  spite  of  the  future,"  which 
are  in  the  original  by  implication  only,  and  are  not 
there  actually  expressed.  This  I  do,  because  Homer, 
as  I  have  before  said,  is  so  remote  from  one  who 
reads  him  in  English,  that  the  English  translator 
must  be  even  plainer,  if  possible,  and  more  unambigu- 
ous than  Homer  himself ;  the  connection  of  meaning 

i  Dr.  Hawtrey  also  has  translated  this  passage  ;  but  here,  he 
has  not,  I  think,  been  so  successful  as  in  his  "  Helen  on  the 
walls  of  Troy." 


232  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

must  be  even  more  distinctly  marked  in  the  trans- 
lation than  in  the  original.  For  in  the  Greek 
language  itself  there  is  something  which  brings  one 
nearer  to  Homer,  which  gives  one  a  clue  to  his 
thought,  which  makes  a  hint  enough ;  but  in  the 
English  language  this  sense  of  nearness,  this  clue,  is 
gone  ;  hints  are  insufficient,  everything  must  be  stated 
with  full  distinctness.  In  the  ninth  line  Homer's 
epithet  for  Priam  is  evfipXdw, — "armed  with  good 
ashen  spear,"  say  the  dictionaries ;  "  ashen-speared," 
translates  Mr.  Newman,  following  his  own  rule  to 
"  retain  every  peculiarity  of  his  original," — I  say,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  eiyx/wAico  has  not  the  effect  of  a 
"  peculiarity  "  in  the  original,  while  "  ashen-speared  " 
has  the  effect  of  a  "peculiarity"  in  English;  and 
"warlike"  is  as  marking  an  equivalent  as  I  dare 
give  for  ev/x/xeAiw,  for  fear  of  disturbing  the  balance 
of  expression  in  Homer's  sentence.  In  the  fourteenth 
line,  again,  I  translate  xa^K0XiT(*>VMV  Dy  "  brazen- 
coated."  Mr.  Newman,  meaning  to  be  perfectly 
literal,  translates  it  by  "brazen-cloaked,"  an  expres- 
sion which  comes  to  the  reader  oddly  and  unnaturally, 
while  Homer's  word  comes  to  him  quite  naturally ; 
but  I  venture  to  go  as  near  to  a  literal  rendering  as 
"  brazen-coated,"  because  a  "  coat  of  brass  "  is  familiar 
to  us  all  from  the  Bible,  and  familiar,  too,  as  distinctly 
specified  in  connection  with  the  wearer.  Finally,  let 
me  further  illustrate  from  the  twentieth  line  the 
value  which  I  attach,  in  a  question  of  diction,  to  the 
authority  of  the  Bible.  The  word  "pre-eminent" 
occurs  in  that  line ;  I  was  a  little  in  doubt  whether 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  233 

that  was  not  too  bookish  an  expression  to  be  used  in 
rendering  Homer,  as  I  can  imagine  Mr.  Newman  to 
have  been  a  little  in  doubt  whether  his  "  responsively 
accosted "  for  djiecfSo/xevos  7rpocre^>r/,  was  not  too 
bookish  an  expression.  Let  us  both,  I  say,  consult 
our  Bibles  :  Mr.  Newman  will  nowhere  find  it  in  his 
Bible  that  David,  for  instance,  "responsively  accosted 
Goliath;"  but  I  do  find  in  mine  that  "the  right 
hand  of  the  Lord  hath  the  pre-eminence  ;  "  and  forth- 
with I  use  "pre-eminent,"  without  scruple.  My 
Bibliolatry  is  perhaps  excessive ;  and  no  doubt  a 
true  poetic  feeling  is  the  Homeric  translator's  best 
guide  in  the  use  of  words ;  but  where  this  feeling 
does  not  exist,  or  is  at  fault,  I  think  he  cannot  do 
better  than  take  for  a  mechanical  guide  Cruden's 
Concordance.  To  be  sure,  here  as  elsewhere,  the  con- 
suiter  must  know  how  to  consult, — must  know  how 
very  slight  a  variation  of  word  or  circumstance  makes 
the  difference  between  an  authority  in  his  favour  and 
an  authority  which  gives  him  no  countenance  at 
all  ;  for  instance,  the  "  Great  simpleton  ! "  (for  jxkya 
vijirtoi)  of  Mr.  Newman,  and  the  "Thou  fool !"  of  the 
Bible,  are  something  alike;  but  "Thou  fool !"  is  very 
grand,  and  "  Great  simpleton  !  "  is  an  atrocity.  So, 
too,  Chapman's  "Poor  wretched  beasts"  is  pitched 
many  degrees  too  low;  but  Shakspcare's  "Poor 
venomous  fool,  Be  angry  and  despatch ! "  is  in  the 
grand  style. 

One  more  piece  of  translation  and  I  have  done.  I 
will  take  the  passage  in  which  both  Chapman  and 
Mr.    Newman   have   already   so   much   excited    our 


234  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

astonishment,  the  passage  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
book  of  the  Iliad,  the  dialogue  between  Achilles  and 
his  horse  Xanthus,  after  the  death  of  Patroclus. 
Achilles  begins  : — 

" '  Xanthus  and  Balius  both,  ye  far-famed  seed  of  Podarga  ! 
See  that  ye  bring  your  master  home  to  the  host  of  the  Argives 
In  some  other  sort  than  your  last,  when  the  battle  is  ended  ; 
And   not   leave   him   behind,    a   corpse   on   the   plain,   like 
Patroclus.' 
"Then,  from  beneath  the  yoke,  the  fleet  horse  Xanthus 
addressed  him : 
Sudden  he  bowed  his  head,  and  all  his  mane,  as  he  bowed  it, 
Streamed  to  the  ground  by  the  yoke,  escaping  from  under  the 

collar  ; 
And  he  was  given  a  voice  by  the  white-armed  Goddess  Hera. 
"  '  Truly,  yet  this  time  mil  we  save  thee,  mighty  Achilles ! 
But  thy  day  of  death  is  at  hand ;  nor  shall  we  be  the  reason — 
No,  but  the  will  of  heaven,  and  Fate's  invincible  power. 
For  by  no  slow  pace  or  want  of  swiftness  of  ours 
Did  the  Trojans  obtain  to  strip  the  arms  from  Patroclus  ; 
But  that  prince  among  Gods,  the  son  of  the  lovely-haired  Leto, 
Slew  him  fighting  in  front  of  the  fray,  and  glorified  Hector. 
But,  for  us,  we  vie  in  speed  with  the  breath  of  the  West-Wind, 
Which,  men  say,  is  the  fleetest  of  winds  ;  't  is  thou  who  art 

fated 
To  lie  low  in  death,  by  the  hand  of  a  God  and  a  Mortal.' 

' '  Thus  far  he ;  and  here  his  voice  was  stopped  by  the  Furies. 
Then,  with  a  troubled  heart,  the  swift  Achilles  addressed  him: 
"  'Why  dost  thou  prophesy  so  my  death  to  me,  Xanthus  ? 
It  needs  not. 
I  of  myself  know  well,  that  here  I  am  destined  to  perish, 
Far  from  my  father  and  mother  dear  :  for  all  that  I  will  not 
Stay  this  hand  from  fight,  till  the  Trojans  are  utterly  routed.' 

' '  So  he  spake,  and  drove  with  a  cry  his  steeds  into  battle. " 

Here  the  only  particular  remark  which  I  will  make 
is,  that  in  the  fourth  and  eighth  line  the  grammar  is 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  235 

what  I  call  a  loose  and  idiomatic  grammar.  In  writ- 
ing a  regular  and  literary  style,  one  would  in  the 
fourth  line  have  to  repeat,  before  "  leave  "  the  words 
"  that  ye "  from  the  second  line,  and  to  insert  the 
word  "do;"  and  in  the  eighth  line  one  would  not 
use  such  an  expression  as  "he  was  given  a  voice." 
But  I  will  make  one  general  remark  on  the  character 
of  my  own  translations,  as  I  have  made  so  many  on 
that  of  the  translations  of  others.  It  is,  that  over 
the  graver  passages  there  is  shed  an  air  somewhat 
too  strenuous  and  severe,  by  comparison  with  that 
lovely  ease  and  sweetness  which  Homer,  for  all  his 
noble  and  masculine  way  of  thinking,  never  loses. 

Here  I  stop.  I  have  said  so  much,  because  I 
think  that  the  task  of  translating  Homer  into  English 
verse  both  will  be  re-attempted,  and  may  be  re- 
attempted  successfully.  There  are  great  works 
composed  of  parts  so  disparate  that  one  translator  is 
not  likely  to  have  the  requisite  gifts  for  poetically 
rendering  all  of  them.  Such  are  the  works  of 
Shakspeare,  and  Goethe's  Faust ;  and  these  it  is  best 
to  attempt  to  render  in  prose  only.  People  praise 
Tieck  and  Schlegel's  version  of  Shakspeare :  I,  for 
my  part,  would  sooner  read  Shakspeare  in  the  French 
prose  translation,  and  that  is  saying  a  great  deal ;  but 
in  the  German  poets'  hands  Shakspeare  so  often 
gets,  especially  where  he  is  humorous,  an  air  of  what 
the  French  call  niaiserie !  and  can  anything  be  more 
un-Shakspearian  than  that  %  Again ;  Mr.  Hayward's 
prose  translation  of  the  first  part  of  Faust — so  good 
that  it  makes  one  regret  Mr.  Hayward  should  have 


236  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

abandoned   the   line   of   translation   for   a   kind    of 
literature  which  is,  to  say  the  least,  somewhat  slight 
— is  not  likely  to  be  surpassed  by  any  translation  in 
verse.     But  poems  like  the  Iliad,  which,  in  the  main, 
are  in  one  manner,  may  hope  to  find  a  poetical  trans- 
lator so  gifted  and  so  trained  as  to  be  able  to  learn 
that  one  manner,  and  to  reproduce  it.      Only,  the 
poet  who  would   reproduce   this  must   cultivate   in 
himself  a  Greek  virtue  by  no  means  common  among 
the  moderns  in  general,  and  the  English  in  particular, 
— moderation.     For  Homer  has  not  only  the  English 
vigour,    he   has   the   Greek   grace;    and   when   one 
observes  the  bolstering,  rollicking  way  in  which  his 
English  admirers — even  men  of  genius,  like  the  late 
Professor  Wilson  — love  to  talk  of  Homer  and  his 
poetry,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  there  is  no  very 
Jeep  community  of  nature   between   them   and  the 
object  of  their  enthusiasm.      "It  is  very  well,    my 
good   friends,"   I   always  imagine   Homer  saying  to 
them  :  if  he  could  hear  them :  "  you  do  me  a  great 
deal  of  honour,  but  somehow  or  other  you  praise  me 
too  like  barbarians."     For  Homer's  grandeur  is  not 
the  mixed  and  turbid  grandeur  of  the  great  poets  of 
the  north,  of  the  authors  of  Othello  and  Faust ;  it  is 
a  perfect,  a  lovely  grandeur.      Certainly  his  poetry 
has  all  the  energy  and  power  of  the  poetry  of  our 
ruder  climates  ;  but  it  has,  besides,  the  pure  lines  of 
an  Ionian  horizon,  the  liquid  clearness  of  an  Ionian 
sky. 


i 


t> 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  237 


LAST  WORDS. 

"  Multi,   qui  persequuntur  me,   et  tribulant  me:    a  testimoniis  nc-D 
declinavi." 

Buffon,  the  great  French  naturalist,  imposed  on 
himself  the  rule  of  steadily  ahstaining  from  all  answer 
to  attacks  made  upon  him.  "  Je  n'ai  jamais  repondu 
a  aucune  critique,"  he  said  to  one  of  his  friends  who, 
on  the  occasion  of  a  certain  criticism,  was  eager  to 
take  up  arms  in  his  behalf ;  "  je  n'ai  jamais  repondu 
a  aucune  critique,  et  je  garderai  le  meme  silence  sur 
celle-ci."  On  another  occasion,  when  accused  of 
plagiarism,  and  pressed  by  his  friends  to  answer, 
"  II  vaut  mieux,"  he  said,  "  laisser  ces  mauvaises 
gens  dans  l'incertitude."  Even  when  reply  to  an 
attack  was  made  successfully,  he  disapproved  of  it, 
he  regretted  that  those  he  esteemed  should  make  it. 
Montesquieu,  more  sensitive  to  criticism  than  Buffon, 
had  answered,  and  successfully  answered,  an  attack 
made  upon  his  great  work,  the  Esprit  des  Lois,  by  the 
Gazetier  Janseniste.  This  Jansenist  Gazetteer  was  a 
periodical  of  those  times, — a  periodical  such  as  other 
times,  also,  have  occasionally  seen, — very  pretentious, 
very  aggressive,  and,  when  the  point  to  be  seized  was 
at  all  a  delicate  one,  very  apt  to  miss  it.  "  Notwith- 
standing this  example,"  said  Buffon, — who,  as  well 
as  Montesquieu,  had  been  attacked  by  the  Jansenist 
Gazetteer, — "  notwithstanding  this  example,  I  think 
I  may  promise  my  course  will  be  different.  I  shall 
uot  answer  a  single  word." 


238  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

And  to  any  one  who  has  noticed  the  baneful  effects 
of  controversy,  with  all  its  train  of  personal  rivalries 
and  hatreds,  on  men  of  letters  or  men  of  science  ;  to 
any  one  who  has  observed  how  it  tends  to  impair, 
not  only  their  dignity  and  repose,  but  their  produc- 
tive force,  their  genuine  activity ;  how  it  always 
checks  the  free  play  of  the  spirit,  and  often  ends  by 
stopping  it  altogether ;  it  can  hardly  seem  doubtful, 
that  the  rule  thus  imposed  on  himself  by  Buffon  was 
a  wise  one.  His  own  career,  indeed,  admirably  shows 
the  wisdom  of  it.  That  career  was  as  glorious  as  it 
was  serene ;  but  it  owed  to  its  serenity  no  small  part 
of  its  glory.  The  regularity  and  completeness  with 
which  he  gradually  built  up  the  great  work  which  he 
had  designed,  the  air  of  equable  majesty  which  b 
shed  over  it,  struck  powerfully  the  imagination  of  hi^ 
contemporaries,  and  surrounded  Buffon's  fame  with  e 
peculiar  respect  and  dignity.  "  He  is,"  said  Fredericl' 
the  Great  of  him,  "  the  man  who  has  best  deserved 
the  great  celebrity  which  he  has  acquired."  And  this 
regularity  of  production,  this  equableness  of  temper, 
he  maintained  by  his  resolute  disdain  of  personal 
controversy. 

Buffon's  example  seems  to  me  worthy  of  all 
imitation,  and  in  my  humble  way  I  mean  always  to 
follow  it.  I  never  have  replied,  I  never  will  reply, 
to  any  literary  assailant ;  in  such  encounters  tempers 
are  lost,  the  world  laughs,  and  truth  is  not  served. 
Least  of  all  should  I  think  of  using  this  Chair  as  a 
place  from  which  to  carry  on  such  a  conflict.  But 
when   a  learned   and  estimable   man  thinks  he  has 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  239 

reason  to  complain  of  language  used  by  me  in  this 
Chair, — when  he  attributes  to  me  intentions  and 
feelings  towards  him  which  are  far  from  my  heart,  I 
owe  him  some  explanation, — and  I  am  bound,  too,  to 
make  the  explanation  as  public  as  the  words  which 
gave  offence.  This  is  the  reason  why  I  revert  once 
more  to  the  subject  of  translating  Homer.  But  being 
thus  brought  back  to  that  subject,  and  not  wishing  to 
occupy  you  solely  with  an  explanation  which,  after 
all,  is  Mr.  Newman's  affair  and  mine,  not  the  public's, 
I  shall  take  the  opportunity, — not  certainly  to  enter 
into  any  conflict  with  any  one, — but  to  try  to  estab- 
lish our  old  friend,  the  coming  translator  of  Homer, 
yet  a  little  firmer  in  the  positions  which  I  hope  we 
have  now  secured  for  him ;  to  protect  him  against 
the  danger  of  relaxing,  in  the  confusion  of  dispute, 
his  attention  to  those  matters  which  alone  I  consider 
important  for  him ;  to  save  him  from  losing  sight,  in 
the  dust  of  the  attacks  delivered  over  it,  of  the  real 
body  of  Patroclus.  He  will,  probably,  when  he 
arrives,  requite  my  solicitude  very  ill,  and  be  in 
haste  to  disown  his  benefactor;  but  my  interest  in 
him  is  so  sincere  that  I  can  disregard  his  probable 
ingratitude. 

First,  however,  for  the  explanation.  Mr.  Newman 
has  published  a  reply  to  the  remarks  which  I  made 
on  his  translation  of  the  Iliad.  He  seems  to  think 
that  the  respect  which  at  the  outset  of  those  remarks 
I  professed  for  him  must  have  been  professed  ironi- 
cally ;  he  says  that  I  use  "  forms  of  attack  against  him 
which  he  does  not  know  how  to  characterise  ;  "  that  I 


240  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

"  speak  scornfully  "  of  him,  treat  him  with  "  gratui- 
tous insult,  gratuitous  rancour ; "  that  I  "  propagate 
slanders"  against  him,  that  I  wish  to  "damage  him 
with  my  readers,"  to  "  stimulate  my  readers  to  de- 
spise "  him.  He  is  entirely  mistaken.  I  respect  Mr. 
Newman  sincerely ;  I  respect  him  as  one  of  the  few 
learned  men  we  have,  one  of  the  few  who  love  learn- 
ing for  its  own  sake ;  this  respect  for  him  I  had  before 
I  read  his  translation  of  the  Iliad,  I  retained  it  while 
I  was  commenting  on  that  translation,  I  have  not  lost 
it  after  reading  his  reply.  Any  vivacities  of  expres- 
sion which  may  have  given  him  pain  I  sincerely 
regret,  and  can  only  assure  him  that  I  used  them 
without  a  thought  of  insult  or  rancour.  When  I  took 
the  liberty  of  creating  the  verb  to  Neivmanise,  my  in- 
tentions were  no  more  rancorous  than  if  I  had  said  to 
Miltonise ;  when  I  exclaimed,  in  my  astonishment  at 
his  vocabulary,  "  With  whom  can  Mr.  Newman  have 
lived  ? "  I  meant  merely  to  convey,  in  a  familiar 
form  of  speech,  the  sense  of  bewilderment  one  has  at 
finding  a  person  to  whom  words  one  thought  all  the 
world  knew  seem  strange,  and  words  one  thought 
entirely  strange,  intelligible.  Yet  this  simple  expres- 
sion of  my  bewilderment  Mr.  Newman  construes  into 
an  accusation  that  he  is  "  often  guilty  of  keeping  low 
company,"  and  says  that  I  shall  "  never  want  a  stone 
to  throw  at  him."  And  what  is  stranger  still,  one  of 
his  friends  gravely  tells  me  that  Mr.  Newman  "  lived 
with  the  fellows  of  Balliol."  As  if  that  made  Mr. 
Newman's  glossary  less  inexplicable  to  me  !  As  if  he 
could  have  got  his  glossary  from  the  fellows  of  Balliol ! 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  241 

As  if  I  could  believe  that  the  members  of  that  dis- 
tinguished society — of  whose  discourse,  not  so  many- 
years  afterwards,  I  myself  was  an  unworthy  hearer — 
were  in  Mr.  Newman's  time  so  far  removed  from  the 
Attic  purity  of  speech  which  we  all  of  us  admired, 
that  when  one  of  them  called  a  calf  a  bulkin,  the  rest 
"  easily  understood "  him ;  or,  when  he  wanted  to 
say  that  a  newspaper-article  was  "  proudly  fine,"  it 
mattered  little  whether  he  said  it  was  that  or  hragly  ! 
No ;  his  having  lived  with  the  fellows  of  Balliol  does 
not  explain  Mr.  Newman's  glossary  to  me.  I  will  no 
longer  ask  "  with  whom  he  can  have  lived,"  since 
that  gives  him  offence ;  but  I  must  still  declare  that 
where  he  got  his  test  of  rarity  or  intelligibility  for 
words  is  a  mystery  to  me. 

That,  however,  does  not  prevent  me  from  enter- 
taining a  very  sincere  respect  for  Mr.  Newman,  and 
since  he  doubts  it,  I  am  glad  to  reiterate  my  expres- 
sion of  it.  But  the  truth  of  the  matter  is  this  :  I 
unfeignedly  admire  Mr.  Newman's  ability  and  learn- 
ing ;  but  I  think  in  his  translation  of  Homer  he  has 
employed  that  ability  and  learning  quite  amiss.  I 
think  he  has  chosen  quite  the  wrong  field  for  turning 
his  ability  and  learning  to  account.  I  think  that  in 
England,  partly  from  the  want  of  an  Academy,  partly 
from  a  national  habit  of  intellect  to  which  that  want 
of  an  Academy  is  itself  due,  there  exists  too  little  of 
what  I  may  call  a  public  force  of  correct  literary 
opinion,  possessing  within  certain  limits  a  clear  sense 
of  what  is  right  and  wrong,  sound  and  unsound,  and 
sharply  recalling  men  of  ability  and  learning  from  any 

VOL.  II.  R 


242  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

flagrant  misdirection  of  these  their  advantages.  I 
think,  even,  that  in  our  country  a  powerful  misdirec- 
tion of  this  kind  is  often  more  likely  to  subjugate  and 
pervert  opinion  than  to  be  checked  and  corrected 
by  it.1  Hence  a  chaos  of  false  tendencies,  wasted 
efforts,  impotent  conclusions,  works  which  ought 
never  to  have  been  undertaken.  Any  one  who  can 
introduce  a  little  order  into  this  chaos  by  establishing 
in  any  quarter  a  single  sound  rule  of  criticism,  a 
single  rule  which  clearly  marks  what  is  right  as  right, 
and  what  is  wrong  as  wrong,  does  a  good  deed ;  and 
his  deed  is  so  much  the  better  the  greater  force  he 
counteracts  of  learning  and  ability  applied  to  thicken 
the  chaos.  Of  course  no  one  can  be  sure  that  he  has 
fixed  any  such  rules  ;  he  can  only  do  his  best  to  fix 
them  ;  but  somewhere  or  other,  in  the  literary  opinion 
of  Europe,  if  not  in  the  literary  opinion  of  one  nation, 
in  fifty  years,  if  not  in  five,  there  is  a  final  judgment 
on  these  matters,  and  the  critic's  work  will  at  last 
stand  or  fall  by  its  true  merits. 

Meanwhile,  the  charge  of  having  in  one  instance 
misapplied  his  powers,  of  having  once  followed  a  false 
tendency,  is  no  such  grievous  charge  to  bring  against 

1  "  It  is  the  fact,  that  scholars  of  fastidious  refinement,  but 
of  a  judgment  which  I  think  far  more  masculine  than  Mr. 
Arnold's,  have  passed  a  most  encouraging  sentence  on  large 
specimens  of  my  translation.  I  at  present  count  eight  such 
names."— "  Before  venturing  to  print,  I  sought  to  ascertain 
how  unlearned  women  and  children  would  accept  my  verses.  I 
could  boast  how  children  and  half-educated  women  have  ex- 
tolled them,  how  greedily  a  working  man  has  inquired  for  them, 
without  knowing  who  was  the  translator." — Mr.  Newman's 
Reiily,  pp.  2,  12,  13. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  243 

a  man  ;  it  does  not  exclude  a  great  respect  for  him- 
self personally,  or  for  his  powers  in  the  happier  mani- 
festation of  them.  False  tendency  is,  I  have  said,  an 
evil  to  which  the  artist  or  the  man  of  letters  in 
England  is  peculiarly  prone  ;  but  everywhere  in  our 
time  he  is  liable  to  it, — the  greatest  as  well  as  the 
humblest.  "The  first  beginnings  of  my  Wilhelm 
Meister,"  says  Goethe,  "  arose  out  of  an  obscure  sense 
of  the  great  truth  that  man  will  often  attempt  some- 
thing for  which  nature  has  denied  him  the  proper 
powers,  will  undertake  and  practise  something  in 
which  he  cannot  become  skilled.  An  inward  feeling 
warns  him  to  desist "  (yes,  but  there  are,  unhappily, 
cases  of  absolute  judicial  blindness!),  "nevertheless  he 
cannot  get  clear  in  himself  about  it,  and  is  driven 
along  a  false  road  to  a  false  goal,  without  knowing 
how  it  is  with  him.  To  this  we  may  refer  everything 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  false  tendency,  dilettan- 
teism,  and  so  on.  A  great  many  men  waste  in  this 
way  the  fairest  portion  of  their  lives,  and  fall  at  last 
into  wonderful  delusion."  Yet  after  all,— Goethe 
adds, — it  sometimes  happens  that  even  on  this  false 
road  a  man  finds,  not  indeed  that  which  he  sought, 
but  something  which  is  good  and  useful  for  him; 
"  like  Saul,  the  son  of  Kish,  Avho  went  forth  to  look 
for  his  father's  asses,  and  found  a  kingdom."  And 
thus  false  tendency  as  well  as  true,  vain  effort  as  well 
as  fruitful,  go  together  to  produce  that  great  move- 
ment of  life,  to  present  that  immense  and  magic 
spectacle  of  human  affairs,  which  from  boyhood  to  old 
age  fascinates  the  gaze  of  every  man  of  imagination, 


244  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

and  which  would  he  his  terror,  if  it  were  not  at  the 
same  time  his  delight. 

So  Mr.  Newman  may  see  how  wide -spread  a 
danger  it  is,  to  which  he  has,  as  I  think,  in  setting 
himself  to  translate  Homer,  fallen  a  prey.  He  may 
be  well  satisfied  if  he  can  escape  from  it  by  paying  it 
the  tribute  of  a  single  work  only.  He  may  judge 
how  unlikely  it  is  that  I  should  "  despise  "  him  for 
once  falling  a  prey  to  it.  I  know  far  too  well  how 
exposed  to  it  we  all  are  ;  how  exposed  to  it  I  myself 
am.  At  this  very  moment,  for  example,  I  am  fresh 
from  reading  Mr.  Newman's  Reply  to  my  Lectures,  a 
reply  full  of  that  erudition  in  which  (as  I  am  so  often 
and  so  good-naturedly  reminded,  but  indeed  I  know 
it  without  being  reminded)  Mr.  Newman  is  immeasur- 
ably my  superior.  Well,  the  demon  that  pushes  us 
all  to  our  ruin  is  even  now  prompting  me  to  follow 
Mr.  Newman  into  a  discussion  about  the  digamma, 
and  I  know  not  what  providence  holds  me  back. 
And  some  day,  I  have  no  doubt,  I  shall  lecture  on 
the  language  of  the  Berbers,  and  give  him  his  entire 
revenge. 

But  Mr.  Newman  does  not  confine  himself  to  com- 
plaints on  his  own  behalf,  he  complains  on  Homer's 
behalf  too.  He  says  that  my  "statements  about 
Greek  literature  are  against  the  most  notorious  and 
elementary  fact;"  that  I  "do  a  public  wrong  to 
literature  by  publishing  them  ; "  and  that  the  Pro- 
fessors to  whom  I  appealed  in  my  three  Lectures, 
"  would  only  lose  credit  if  they  sanctioned  the  use  I 
make  of  their  names."     He  does  these  eminent  men 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  245 

the  kindness  of  adding,  however,  that  "whether  the}' 
are  pleased  with  this  parading  of  their  names  in  behalf 
of  paradoxical  error,  he  may  well  doubt,"  and  that 
"  until  they  endorse  it  themselves,  he  shall  treat  my 
process  as  a  piece  of  forgery."  He  proceeds  to  discuss 
my  statements  at  great  length,  and  with  an  erudition 
and  ingenuity  which  nobody  can  admire  more  than  I  do. 
And  he  ends  by  saying  that  my  ignorance  is  great. 

Alas  !  that  is  very  true.  Much  as  Mr.  Newman 
was  mistaken  when  he  talked  of  my  rancour,  he  is 
entirely  right  when  he  talks  of  my  ignorance.  And 
yet,  perverse  as  it  seems  to  say  so,  I  sometimes  find 
myself  wishing,  when  dealing  with  these  matters  of 
poetical  criticism,  that  my  ignorance  were  even  greater 
than  it  is.  To  handle  these  matters  properly  there  is 
needed  a  poise  so  perfect  that  the  least  overweight  in 
any  direction  tends  to  destroy  the  balance.  Temper 
destroys  it,  a  crotchet  destroys  it,  even  erudition  may 
destroy  it.  To  press  to  the  sense  of  the  thing  itself 
with  which  one  is  dealing,  not  to  go  off  on  some  col- 
lateral issue  about  the  thing,  is  the  hardest  matter  in 
the  world.  The  "thing  itself"  with  which  one  is 
here  dealing, — the  critical  perception  of  poetic  truth, 
— is  of  all  things  the  most  volatile,  elusive,  and  evan- 
escent ;  by  even  pressing  too  impetuously  after  it,  one 
runs  the  risk  of  losing  it.  The  critic  of  poetry  should 
have  the  finest  tact,  the  nicest  moderation,  the  most 
free,  flexible,  and  elastic  spirit  imaginable ;  he  should 
be  indeed  the  "ondoyant  et  divers,"  the  undulating 
and  diverse  being  of  Montaigne.  The  less  he  can  deal 
with  his  object  simply  and  freely,  the  more  things  he 


246  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

has  to  take  into  account  in  dealing  with  it,— the  more, 
in  short,  he  has  to  encumber  himself, — so  much  the 
greater  force  of  spirit  he  needs  to  retain  his  elasticity. 
But  one  cannot  exactly  have  this  greater  force  by 
wishing  for  it ;  so,  for  the  force  of  spirit  one  has,  the 
load  put  upon  it  is  often  heavier  than  it  will  well 
bear.  The  late  Duke  of  Wellington  said  of  a  certain 
peer  that  "  it  was  a  great  pity  his  education  had  been 
so  far  too  much  for  his  abilities."  In  like  manner, 
one  often  sees  erudition  out  of  all  proportion  to  its 
owner's  critical  faculty.  Little  as  I  know,  therefore, 
I  am  always  apprehensive,  in  dealing  with  poetry, 
lest  even  that  little  should  prove  "  too  much  for  my 
abilities." 

With  this  consciousness  of  my  own  lack  of  learning, 
—nay,  with  this  sort  of  acquiescence  in  it,  with  this 
belief  that  for  the  labourer  in  the  field  of  poetical 
criticism  learning  has  its  disadvantages, — I  am  not 
likely  to  dispute  with  Mr.  Newman  about  matters  of 
erudition.  All  that  he  says  on  these  matters  in  his 
Reply  I  read  with  great  interest :  in  general  I  agree 
with  him ;  but  only,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point.  Like  all  learned  men,  accustomed  to  desire 
definite  rules,  he  draws  his  conclusions  too  absolutely; 
he  wants  to  include  too  much  under  his  rules;  he  does 
not  quite  perceive  that  in  poetical  criticism  the  shade, 
the  fine  distinction,  is  everything ;  and  that,  when  he 
has  once  missed  this,  in  all  he  says  he  is  in  truth  but 
beating  the  air.  For  instance :  because  I  think  Homer 
noble,  he  imagines  I  must  think  him  elegant ;  and  in 
fact  he  says  in  plain  words  that  I  do  think  him  so, — 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  247 

that  to  me  Homer  seems  "  pervadingly  elegant."  But 
he  does  not.  Virgil  is  elegant, — "pervadingly  ele- 
gant,"— even  in  passages  of  the  highest  emotion  : 

"0,  ubi  cam  pi, 
Spercheosque,  et  virginibus  bacchata  Lacasnis 
Taygeta !  " > 

Even  there  Virgil,  though  of  a  divine  elegance,  is  still 
elegant :  but  Homer  is  not  elegant ;  the  word  is  quite 
a  wrong  one  to  apply  to  him,  and  Mr.  Newman  is 
quite  right  in  blaming  any  one  he  finds  so  applying 
it.  Again ;  arguing  against  my  assertion  that  Homer 
is  not  quaint,  he  says  :  "  It  is  quaint  to  call  waves 
wet,  milk  white,  blood  dusky,  horses  single-hoofed,  words 
winged,  Vulcan  Lobfoot  (KvWottoSIwv),  a  spear  long- 
shadowy,"  and  so  on.  I  find  I  know  not  how  many 
distinctions  to  draw  here.  I  do  not  think  it  quaint 
to  call  waves  wet,  or  milk  white,  or  words  vnnged  ;  but 
I  do  think  it  quaint  to  call  horses  single-hoofed,  or 
Vulcan  Lobfoot,  or  a  spear  longshadowy.  As  to  calling 
blood  dusky,  I  do  not  feel  quite  sure  ;  I  will  tell  Mr. 
Newman  my  opinion  when  I  see  the  passage  in  which 
he  calls  it  so.  But  then,  again,  because  it  is  quaint 
to  call  Vulcan  Lobfoot,  I  cannot  admit  that  it  was 
quaint  to  call  him  KvXXottoSlwv  •  nor  that,  because  it 
is  quaint  to  call  a  spear  longshadowy,  it  was  quaint  to 
call  it  SoAtxocrKiov.  Here  Mr.  Newman's  erudition 
misleads  him :  he  knows  the  literal  value  of  the 
Greek  so  well,  that  he  thinks  his  literal  rendering 

1  "  0  for  the  fields  of  Thessaly  and  the  streams  of  Spercheios  ! 
0  for  the  hills  alive  with  the  dances  of  the  Laconian  maidens, 
the  hills  of  Taygetus  !  " — Georgics,  ii.  4S6. 


248  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

identical  with  the  Greek,  and  that  the  Greek  must 
stand  or  fall  along  with  his  rendering.  But  the  real 
question  is,  not  whether  he  has  given  us,  so  to  speak, 
full  change  for  the  Greek,  but  how  he  gives  us  our 
change  :  we  want  it  in  gold,  arid  he  gives  it  us  in 
copper.  Again:  "It  is  quaint,"  says  Mr.  Newman, 
"  to  address  a  young  friend  as  '  0  Pippin  ! ' — it  is 
quaint  to  compare  Ajax  to  an  ass  whom  boys  are 
belabouring."  Here,  too,  Mr.  Newman  goes  much 
too  fast,  and  his  category  of  quaintness  is  too  compre- 
hensive. To  address  a  young  friend  as  "  0  Pippin  !" 
is,  I  cordially  agree  with  him,  very  quaint ;  although 
I  do  not  think  it  was  quaint  in  Sarpedon  to  address 
Glaucus  as  w  irk-Trov  :  but  in  comparing,  whether  in 
Greek  or  in  English,  Ajax  to  an  ass  whom  boys  are 
belabouring,  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  of  necessity 
anything  quaint  at  all.  Again  ;  because  I  said  that 
eld,  lief,  in  sooth,  and  other  words,  are,  as  Mr.  Newman 
uses  them  in  certain  places,  bad  words,  he  imagines 
that  I  must  mean  to  stamp  these  words  with  an  abso- 
lute reprobation ;  and  because  I  said  that  "  my 
Bibliolatry  is  excessive,"  he  imagines  that  I  brand  all 
words  as  ignoble  which  are  not  in  the  Bible.  Nothing 
of  the  kind :  there  are  no  such  absolute  rules  to  be 
/aid  down  in  these  matters.  The  Bible  vocabulary  is 
to  be  used  as  an  assistance,  not  as  an  authority.  Of 
the  words  which,  placed  where  Mr.  Newman  places 
them,  I  have  called  bad  words,  every  one  may  be 
excellent  in  some  other  place.  Take  eld,  for  instance  : 
when  Shakspeare,  reproaching  man  with  the  depend- 
ence in  which  his  youth  is  passed,  says  : 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  249 

' '  all  thy  blessed  youth 
Becomes  as  aged,  and  doth  beg  the  alms 
Of  palsied  eld,"  .  .  . 

it  seems  to  me  that  eld  comes  in  excellently  there,  in 
a  passage  of  curious  meditation ;  but  when  Mr.  New- 
man renders  ayi)p<o  r  aQav6.no  re  by  "  from  Eld  and 
Death  exempted,"  it  seems  to  me  he  infuses  a  tinge 
of  quaintness  into  the  transparent  simplicity  of 
Homer's  expression,  and  so  I  call  eld  a  bad  word  in 
that  place. 

Once  more.  Mr.  Newman  lays  it  down  as  a 
general  rule  that  "many  of  Homer's  energetic  de- 
scriptions are  expressed  in  coarse  physical  words." 
He  goes  on:  "I  give  one  illustration, — Tpwes  irpo- 
vTvxpav  ao/YAies.  Cowper,  misled  by  the  ignis  fatuus  of 
'  stateliness,'  renders  it  absurdly  : 

'  The  powers  of  Ilium  gave  the  first  assault 
Embattled  close  ; ' 

but  it  is,  strictly,  '  The  Trojans  knocked  forward  (or, 
thumped,  butted  forward)  in  close  pack'  The  verb  is 
too  coarse  for  later  polished  prose,  and  even  the 
adjective  is  very  strong  (packed  together).  I  believe, 
that  '  forward  in  pack  the  Trojans  pitched,'  would 
not  be  really  unfaithful  to  the  Homeric  colour  ;  and 
I  maintain,  that  '  forward  in  mass  the  Trojans 
pitched,'  would  be  an  irreprovable  rendering."  He 
actually  gives  us  all  that  as  if  it  were  a  piece  of  scien- 
tific deduction ;  and  as  if,  at  the  end,  he  had  arrived 
at  an  incontrovertible  conclusion.  But,  in  truth,  one 
cannot  settle  these  matters  quite  in  this  way.  Mr.  New- 
man's general  rule  may  be  true  or  false  (I  dislike  to 


250  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

meddle  with  general  rules),  but  every  part  in  what 
follows  must  stand  or  fall  by  itself,  and  its  soundness 
or  unsoundness  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  Mr.  Newman's  general  mle. 
He  first  gives,  as  a  strict  rendering  of  the  Greek, 
"  The  Trojans  knocked  forward  (or,  thumped,  butted 
forward),  in  close  pack."  I  need  not  say  that,  as  a 
"strict  rendering  of  the  Greek,"  this  is  good, — all 
Mr.  Newman's  "  strict  renderings  of  the  Greek  "  are 
sure  to  be,  as  such,  good  ;  but  "  in  close  pack,"  for 
aoAA«s,  seems  to  me  to  be  what  Mr.  Newman's  ren- 
derings are  not  always, — an  excellent  poetical  render- 
ing of  the  Greek  ;  a  thousand  times  better,  certainly, 
than  Cowper's  "  embattled  close."  Well,  but  Mr. 
Newman  goes  on  :  "I  believe  that,  '  forward  in  pack 
the  Trojans  pitched,'  would  not  be  really  unfaithful 
to  the  Homeric  colour."  Here,  I  say,  the  Homeric 
colour  is  half  washed  out  of  Mr.  Newman's  happy 
rendering  of  doXXees ;  while  in  "  pitched  "  for  7rpo- 
vrvxpav,  the  literal  fidelity  of  the  first  rendering  is  gone, 
while  certainly  no  Homeric  colour  has  come  in  its 
place.  Finally,  Mr.  Newman  concludes  :  "I  main- 
tain that  '  forward  in  mass  the  Trojans  pitched,' 
would  be  an  irreprovable  rendering."  Here,  in  what 
Mr.  Newman  fancies  his  final  moment  of  triumph, 
Homeric  colour  and  literal  fidelity  have  alike  aban- 
doned him  altogether  ;  the  last  stage  of  his  translation 
is  much  worse  than  the  second,  and  immeasurably 
worse  than  the  first. 

All  this  to  show  that  a  looser,  easier  method  than 
Mr.  Newman's  must  be  taken,  if  we  are  to  arrive  at 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  251 

any  good  result  in  these  questions.  I  now  go  on  to 
follow  Mr.  Newman  a  little  further,  not  at  all  as 
wishing  to  dispute  with  him,  hut  as  seeking  (and  this 
is  the  true  fruit  we  may  gather  from  criticisms  upon 
us)  to  gain  hints  from  him  for  the  establishment  of 
some  useful  truth  about  our  subject,  even  when  I 
think  him  wrong.  I  still  retain,  I  confess,  my  con- 
viction that  Homer's  characteristic  qualities  are 
rapidity  of  movement,  plainness  of  words  and  style, 
simplicity  and  directness  of  ideas,  and,  above  all, 
nobleness,  the  grand  manner.  Whenever  Mr.  New- 
man drops  a  word,  awakens  a  train  of  thought,  which 
leads  me  to  see  any  of  these  characteristics  more 
clearly,  I  am  grateful  to  him  ;  and  one  or  two  sug- 
gestions of  this  kind  which  he  affords,  are  all  that 
now, — having  expressed  my  sorrow  that  he  should 
have  misconceived  my  feelings  towards  him,  and 
pointed  out  what  I  think  the  vice  of  his  method  of 
criticism, — I  have  to  notice  in  his  Eeply. 

Such  a  suggestion  I  find  in  Mr.  Newman's  remarks 
on  my  assertion  that  the  translator  of  Homer  must 
not  adopt  a  quaint  and  antiquated  style  in  rendering 
him,  because  the  impression  which  Homer  makes  upon 
the  living  scholar  is  not  that  of  a  poet  quaint  and 
antiquated,  but  that  of  a  poet  perfectly  simple,  per- 
fectly intelligible.  I  added  that  we  cannot,  I  confess, 
really  know  how  Homer  seemed  to  Sophocles,  but 
that  it  is  impossible  to  me  to  believe  that  he  seemed 
to  him  quaint  and  antiquated.  Mr.  Newman  asserts, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  I  am  absurdly  wrong  here ; 
that  Homer  seemed  "  out  and  out  "  quaint  and  anti- 


252  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

quated  to  the  Athenians  ;  that  "  every  sentence  of 
him  was  more  or  less  antiquated  to  Sophocles,  who 
could  no  more  help  feeling  at  every  instant  the  foreign 
and  antiquated  character  of  the  poetry  than  an  Eng- 
lishman can  help  feeling  the  same  in  reading  Burns's 
poems."  And  not  only  does  Mr.  Newman  say  this, 
but  he  has  managed  thoroughly  to  convince  some  of 
his  readers  of  it.  "  Homer's  Greek,"  says  one  of 
them,  "  certainly  seemed  antiquated  to  the  historical 
times  of  Greece.  Mr.  Newman,  taking  a  far  broader 
historical  and  philological  view  than  Mr.  Arnold, 
stoutly  maintains  that  it  did  seem  so."  And  another 
says  :  "  Doubtless  Homer's  dialect  and  diction  were 
as  hard  and  obscure  to  a  later  Attic  Greek  as  Chaucer 
to  an  Englishman  of  our  day." 

Mr.  Newman  goes  on  to  say,  that  not  only  was 
Homer  antiquated  relatively  to  Pericles,  but  he  is 
antiquated  to  the  living  scholar;  and,  indeed,  is  in 
himself  "  absolutely  antique,  being  the  poet  of  a  bar- 
barian age."  He  tells  us  of  his  "  inexhaustible  quaint- 
nesses,"  of  his  "very  eccentric  diction;"  and  he 
infers,  of  course,  that  he  is  perfectly  right  in  render 
ing  him  in  a  quaint  and  antiquated  style. 

Now  this  question,— whether  or  no  Homer  seemed 
quaint  and  antiquated  to  Sophocles, — I  call  a  delight- 
ful question  to  raise.  It  is  not  a  barren  verbal  dis- 
pute ;  it  is  a  question  "  drenched  in  matter,"  to  use 
an  expression  of  Bacon ;  a  question  full  of  flesh  and 
blood,  and  of  which  the  scrutiny,  though  I  still  think 
we  cannot  settle  it  absolutely,  may  yet  give  us  a 
directly  useful  result.     To  scrutinise  it  may  lead  us 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  253 

fco  see  more  clearly  what  sort  of  a  style  a  modern 
translator  of  Homer  ought  to  adopt. 

Homer's  verses  were  some  of  the  first  words  which 
a  young  Athenian  heard.  He  heard  them  from  his 
mother  or  his  nurse  before  he  went  to  school ;  and  at 
school,  when  he  went  there,  he  was  constantly  occu- 
pied with  them.  So  much  did  he  hear  of  them  that 
Socrates  proposes,  in  the  interests  of  morality,  to 
have  selections  from  Homer  made,  and  placed  in  the 
hands  of  mothers  and  nurses,  in  his  model  republic  ; 
in  order  that,  of  an  author  with  whom  they  were 
sure  to  be  so  perpetually  conversant,  the  young  might 
learn  only  those  parts  which  might  do  them  good. 
His  language  was  as  familiar  to  Sophocles,  we  may 
be  quite  sure,  as  the  language  of  the  Bible  is  to  us. 

Nay,  more.  Homer's  language  was  not,  of  course, 
in  the  time  of  Sophocles,  the  spoken  or  written  lan- 
guage of  ordinary  life,  any  more  than  the  language  of 
the  Bible,  any  more  than  the  language  of  poetry,  is 
Avith  us ;  but  for  one  great  species  of  composition — 
epic  poetry — it  was  still  the  current  language ;  it  was 
the  language  in  which  every  one  who  made  that  sort 
of  poetry  composed.  Every  one  at  Athens  who 
dabbled  in  epic  poetry,  not  only  understood  Homer's 
language, — he  possessed  it.  He  possessed  it  as  every 
one  who  dabbles  in  poetry  with  us,  possesses  what 
may  be  called  the  poetical  vocabulary,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  vocabulary  of  common  speech  and 
of  modern  prose :  I  mean,  such  expressions  as  per- 
chance for  perhaps,  spake  for  spoke,  aye  for  ever,  don  for 
put  on,  charmdd  for  charm' d,  and  thousands  of  others. 


254  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

I  might  go  to  Burns  and  Chaucer,  and,  taking 
words  and  passages  from  them,  ask  if  they  afforded 
any  parallel  to  a  language  so  familiar  and  so  pos- 
sessed. But  this  I  will  not  do,  for  Mr.  Newman 
himself  supplies  me  with  what  he  thinks  a  fair 
parallel,  in  its  effect  upon  us,  to  the  language  of 
Homer  in  its  effect  upon  Sophocles.  He  says  that 
such  words  as  mon,  londis,  libbard,  ivithouten,  muchel, 
give  us  a  tolerable  but  incomplete  notion  of  this 
parallel ;  and  he  finally  exhibits  the  parallel  in  all 
its  clearness,  by  this  poetical  specimen  : — 

"  Dat  mon,  quliich  hauldeth  Kyngis  af 
Londis  yn  feo,  niver 
(I  tell  'e)  feereth  aught ;  sith  hee 
Doth  hauld  hys  londis  yver." 

Now,  does  Mr.  Newman  really  think  that  Sophocles 
could,  as  he  says,  "no  more  help  feeling  at  every 
instant  the  foreign  and  antiquated  character  of 
Homer,  than  an  Englishman  can  help  feeling  the 
same  in  hearing"  these  lines?  Is  he  quite  sure  of 
it  ?  He  says  he  is ;  he  will  not  allow  of  any  doubt 
or  hesitation  in  the  matter.  I  had  confessed  we 
could  not  really  know  how  Homer  seemed  to 
Sophocles ; — "  Let  Mr.  Arnold  confess  for  himself," 
cries  Mr.  Newman,  "and  not  for  me,  who  know 
perfectly  well."     And  this  is  what  he  knows  ! 

Mr.  Newman  says,  however,  that  I  "play  falla- 
ciously on  the  words  familiar  and  unfamiliar;"  that 
"  Homer's  words  may  have  been  familiar  to  the 
Athenians  (i.e.  often  heard)  even  when  they  were 
either  not  understood  by  them  or  else,  being  under- 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  255 

stood,  were  yet  felt  and  known  to  be  utterly  foreign. 
Let  my  renderings,"  he  continues,  "be  heard,  as  Pope 
or  even  Cowper  has  been  heard,  and  no  one  will  be 
'  surprised. ' " 

But  the  whole  question  is  here.  The  translator 
must  not  assume  that  to  have  taken  place  which  has 
not  taken  place,  although,  perhaps,  he  may  wish  it 
to  have  taken  place, — namely,  that  his  diction  is 
become  an  established  possession  of  the  minds  of 
men,  and  therefore  is,  in  its  proper  place,  familiar 
to  them,  will  not  "surprise"  them.  If  Homer's 
language  was  familiar, — that  is,  often  heard, — then 
to  this  language  words  like  londis  and  libbard,  which 
are  not  familiar,  offer,  for  the  translator's  purpose, 
no  parallel.  For  some  purpose  of  the  philologer 
they  may  offer  a  parallel  to  it ;  for  the  translator's 
purpose  they  offer  none.  The  question  is  not, 
whether  a  diction  is  antiquated  for  current  speech, 
but  whether  it  is  antiquated  for  that  particular  pur- 
pose for  which  it  is  employed.  A  diction  that  is 
antiquated  for  common  speech  and  common  prose, 
may  very  well  not  be  antiquated  for  poetry  or  certain 
special  kinds  of  prose.  "  Peradventure  there  shall 
be  ten  found  there,"  is  not  antiquated  for  Biblical 
prose,  though  for  conversation  or  for  a  newspaper 
it  is  antiquated.  "The  trumpet  spake  not  to  the 
armed  throng,"  is  not  antiquated  for  poetry,  although 
we  should  not  write  in  a  letter,  "he  sjmke  to  me,"  or 
say,  "  the  British  soldier  is  armed  with  the  Enfield 
rifle."  But  when  language  is  antiquated  for  that 
particular   purpose   for   which    it   is    employed, — as 


256  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

numbers  of  Chaucer's  words,  for  instance,  are  anti- 
quated for  poetry, — such  language  is  a  bad  repre- 
sentative of  language  which,  like  Homer's,  was  never 
antiquated  for  that  particular  purpose  for  which  it 
was  employed.  I  imagine  that  LT^Ai/LaSew  for  II^Aei- 
Sov,  in  Homer,  no  more  sounded  antiquated  to 
Sophocles  than  armid  for  arm'd,  in  Milton,  sounds 
antiquated  to  us;  but  Mr.  Newman's  mthouten  and 
mucliel  do  sound  to  us  antiquated,  even  for  poetry, 
and  therefore  they  do  not  correspond  in  their  effect 
upon  us  with  Homer's  words  in  their  effect 
upon  Sophocles.  When  Chaucer,  who  uses  such 
words,  is  to  pass  current  amongst  us,  to  be  familiar 
to  us,  as  Homer  was  familiar  to  the  Athenians,  he 
has  to  be  modernised,  as  Wordsworth  and  others  set 
to  work  to  modernise  him ;  but  an  Athenian  no  more 
needed  to  have  Homer  modernised,  than  we  need  to 
have  the  Bible  modernised,  or  Wordsworth  himself. 

Therefore,  when  Mr.  Newman's  words  bragly, 
bidkin,  and  the  rest,  are  an  established  possession 
of  our  minds,  as  Homer's  words  were  an  established 
possession  of  an  Athenian's  mind,  he  may  use  them ; 
but  not  till  then.  Chaucer's  words,  the  words  of 
Burns,  great  poets  as  these  were,  are  yet  not  thus 
an  established  possession  of  an  Englishman's  mind, 
and  therefore  they  must  not  be  used  in  rendering 
Homer  into  English. 

Mr.  Newman  has  been  misled  just  by  doing  that 
which  his  admirer  praises  him  for  doing,  by  taking  a 
"far  broader  historical  and  philological  view  than" 
mine.     Precisely  because  he  has  done  this,  and  has 


OX  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  257 

applied  the  "  philological  view "  where  it  was  not 
applicable,  but  Avhere  the  "  poetical  view  "  alone  was 
lightly  applicable,  he  has  fallen  into  error. 

It  is  the  same  with  him  in  his  remarks  on  the 
difficulty  and  obscurity  of  Homer.  Homer,  I  say, 
is  perfectly  plain  in  speech,  simple,  and  intelligible. 
And  I  infer  from  this  that  his  translator,  too,  ought 
to  be  perfectly  plain  in  speech,  simple,  and  intelli- 
gible ;  ought  not  to  say,  for  instance,  in  rendering 

Ovre  Ke  <rh  ctt^Woi/m  ^xn"  cs  Kv^tdveipav  .    .   . 

"  Nor  liefly  thee  Avould  I  advance  to  man-ennobling 
battle," — and  things  of  that  kind.  Mr.  Newman 
hands  me  a  list  of  some  twenty  hard  words,  invokes 
Buttman,  Mr.  Maiden,  and  M.  Benfey,  and  asks  me 
if  I  think  myself  wiser  than  all  the  world  of  Greek 
scholars,  and  if  I  am  ready  to  supply  the  deficiencies 
of  Liddell  and  Scott's  Lexicon !  But  here,  again, 
Mr.  Newman  errs  by  not  perceiving  that  the  ques- 
tion is  one  not  of  scholarship,  but  of  a  poetical  trans- 
lation of  Homer.  This,  I  say,  should  be  perfectly 
simple  and  intelligible.  He  replies  by  telling  me 
that  aSivus,  etAiVoSes,  and  crtyaAoeis  are  hard  words. 
Well,  but  what  does  he  infer  from  that  %  That  the 
poetical  translation,  in  his  rendering  of  them,  is  to 
give  us  a  sense  of  the  difficulties  of  the  scholar,  and 
so  is  to  make  his  translation  obscui'e  1  If  he  does 
not  mean  that,  how,  by  bringing  forward  these  hard 
words,  does  he  touch  the  question  whether  an  English 
version  of  Homer  should  be  plain  or  not  plain  ?  If 
Homer's  poetry,  as  poetry,  is  in  its  general  effect  on 
VOL.   II.  S 


258  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

the  poetical  reader  perfectly  simple  and  intelligible, 
the  uncertainty  of  the  scholar  about  the  true  meaning 
of  certain  words  can  never  change  this  general  effect. 
Kather  will  the  poetry  of  Homer  make  us  forget  his 
philology,  than  his  philology  make  us  forget  his 
poetry.  It  may  even  be  affirmed  that  every  one 
who  reads  Homer  perpetually  for  the  sake  of  enjoy- 
ing his  poetry  (and  no  one  who  does  not  so  read  him 
will  ever  translate  him  well),  comes  at  last  to  form  a 
perfectly  clear  sense  in  his  own  mind  for  every  im- 
portant word  in  Homer,  such  as  dStvos,  or  rj\i/3aTo<;, 
whatever  the  scholar's  doubts  about  the  word  may 
be.  And  this  sense  is  present  to  his  mind  with 
perfect  clearness  and  fulness,  whenever  the  word 
recurs,  although  as  a  scholar  he  may  know  that  he 
cannot  be  sure  whether  this  sense  is  the  right  one 
or  not.  But  poetically  he  feels  clearly  about  the 
word,  although  philologically  he  may  not.  The 
scholar  in  him  may  hesitate,  like  the  father  in 
Sheridan's  play;  but  the  reader  of  poetry  in  him 
is,  like  the  governor,  fixed.  The  same  thing  happens 
to  us  with  our  own  language.  How  many  words 
occur  in  the  Bible,  for  instance,  to  which  thousands 
of  hearers  do  not  feel  sure  they  attach  the  precise 
real  meaning;  but  they  make  out  a  meaning  for 
them  out  of  what  materials  they  have  at  hand ;  and 
the  words,  heard  over  and  over  again,  come  to  convey 
this  meaning  with  a  certainty  which  poetically  is 
adequate,  though  not  philologically.  How  many 
have  attached  a  clear  and  poetically  adequate  sense 
to    "the   beam"   and    "the   'mote"  though   not   pre- 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  259 

cisely  the  right  one !  How  clearly,  again,  have 
readers  got  a  sense  from  Milton's  words,  "  grate  on 
their  scrannel  pipes,"  who  yet  might  have  been 
puzzled  to  write  a  commentary  on  the  word  scrannel 
for  the  dictionary  !  So  we  get  a  clear  sense  from 
dStvus  as  an  epithet  for  grief,  after  often  meeting 
with  it  and  finding  out  all  we  can  about  it,  even 
though  that  all  be  philologically  insufficient;  so  we 
get  a  clear  sense  from  eiAiVoSes  as  an  epithet  for 
cows.  And  this  his  clear  poetical  sense  about  the 
words,  not  his  philological  uncertainties  about  them, 
is  what  the  translator  has  to  convey.  Words  like 
bragly  and  bulkin  offer  no  parallel  to  these  words ; 
because  the  reader,  from  his  entire  want  of  fami- 
liarity with  the  words  bragly  and  bulkin,  has  no  clear 
sense  of  them  poetically. 

Perplexed  by  his  knowledge  of  the  philological 
aspect  of  Homer's  language,  encumbered  by  his  own 
learning,  Mr.  Newman,  I  say,  misses  the  poetical 
aspect,  misses  that  with  which  alone  we  are  here  con- 
cerned. "  Homer  is  odd,"  he  persists,  fixing  his  eyes 
on  his  own  philological  analysis  of  fxwvvg,  and  pepoips, 
and  KvXXoTroSioiv,  and  not  on  these  words  in  their 
synthetic  character ; — just  as  Professor  Max  Miiller, 
going  a  little  farther  back,  and  fixing  his  attention  on 
the  elementary  value  of  the  word  dvydr-qp,  might  say 
Homer  was  "odd"  for  using  that  word; — "if  the 
whole  Greek  nation,  by  long  familiarity,  had  become 
inobservant  of  Homer's  oddities," — of  the  oddities  of 
this  "  noble  barbarian,"  as  Mr.  Newman  elsewhere 
calls  him,  this  "noble  barbarian"  with  the  "lively 


260  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

eye  of  the  savage," — "  that  would  he  no  fault  of  mine. 
That  would  not  justify  Mr.  Arnold's  hlame  of  me  for 
rendering  the  words  correctly."  Correctly, — ah,  hut 
what  is  correctness  in  this  case  1  This  correctness  of 
his  is  the  very  rock  on  which  Mr.  Newman  has  split. 
He  is  so  correct  that  at  last  he  finds  peculiarity 
everywhere.  The  true  knowledge  of  Homer  hecomes 
at  last,  in  his  eyes,  a  knowledge  of  Homer's  "  pecu- 
liarities, pleasant  and  unpleasant."  Learned  men 
know  these  "  peculiarities,"  and  Homer  is  to  be  trans- 
lated because  the  unlearned  are  impatient  to  know 
them  too.  "That,"  he  exclaims,  "is  just  why  people 
want  to  read  an  English  Homer, — to  know  all  his 
oddities,  just  as  learned  men  do."  Here  I  am  obliged  to 
shake  my  head,  and  to  declare  that,  in  spite  of  all  my 
respect  for  Mr.  Newman,  I  cannot  go  these  lengths 
with  him.  He  talks  of  my  "monomaniac  fancy  that 
there  is  nothing  quaint  or  antique  in  Homer."  Ter- 
rible learning, — I  cannot  help  in  my  turn  exclaim- 
ing,— terrible  learning,  which  discovers  so  much  ! 

Here,  then,  I  take  my  leave  of  Mr.  Newman, 
retaining  my  opinion  that  his  version  of  Homer  is 
spoiled  by  his  making  Homer  odd  and  ignoble ;  but 
having,  I  hope,  sufficient  love  for  literature  to  be  able 
to  canvass  works  without  thinking  of  persons,  and  to 
hold  this  or  that  production  cheap,  while  retaining  a 
sincere  respect,  on  other  grounds,  for  its  author. 

In  fulfilment  of  my  promise  to  take  this  oppor- 
tunity for  giving  the  translator  of  Homer  a  little 
further  advice,  I  proceed  to  notice  one  or  two  other 
criticisms  which   I  find,   in  like  manner,  suggestive ; 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  261 

which  give  us  an  opportunity,  that  is,  of  seeing  more 
clearly,  as  we  look  into  them,  the  true  principles  on 
which  translation  of  Homer  should  rest.  This  is  all  I 
seek  in  criticisms;  and,  perhaps  (as  I  have  already 
said)  it  is  only  as  one  seeks  a  positive  result  of  this 
kind,  that  one  can  get  any  fruit  from  them.  Seeking 
a  negative  result  from  them, — personal  altercation  and 
wrangling, — one  gets  no  fruit;  seeking  a  positive 
result, — the  elucidation  and  establishment  of  one's 
ideas, — one  may  get  much.  Even  bad  criticisms  may 
thus  be  made  suggestive  and  fruitful.  I  declared,  in 
a  former  lecture  on  this  subject,  my  conviction  that 
criticism  is  not  the  strong  point  of  our  national 
literature.  Well,  even  the  bad  criticisms  on  our 
present  topic  which  I  meet  with,  serve  to  illustrate 
this  conviction  for  me.  And  thus  one  is  enabled, 
even  in  reading  remarks  which  for  Homeric  criticism, 
for  their  immediate  subject,  have  no  value, — which 
are  far  too  personal  in  spirit,  far  too  immoderate  in 
temper,  and  far  too  heavy-handed  in  style,  for  the 
delicate  matter  they  have  to  treat, — still  to  gain  light 
and  confirmation  for  a  serious  idea,  and  to  follow  the 
Baconian  injunction,  semper  aliquid  addiscere,  always  to 
be  adding  to  one's  stock  of  observation  and  knowledge. 
Yes,  even  when  we  have  to  do  with  writers  who, — to 
quote  the  words  of  an  exquisite  critic,  the  master  of 
us  all  in  criticism,  M.  Sainte-Beuve, — remind  us,  when 
they  handle  such  subjects  as  our  present,  of  "  Komans 
of  the  fourth  or  fifth  century,  coming  to  hold  forth, 
all  at  random,  in  African  style,  on  papers  found  in 
the  desk    of   Augustus,  Maecenas,  or   Pollio," — even 


262  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

then  we  may  instruct  ourselves  if  we  may  regard 
ideas  and  not  persons;  even  then  we  may  enable 
ourselves  to  say,  with  the  same  critic  describing  the 
effect  made  upon  him  by  D'Argenson's  Memoirs: 
"  My  taste  is  revolted,  but  I  learn  something ; — Je  suis 
choque"  maisje  suis  instruit." 

But  let  us  pass  to  criticisms  which  are  suggestive 
directly  and  not  thus  indirectly  only, — criticisms  by 
examining  which  we  may  be  brought  nearer  to  what 
immediately  interests  us, — the  right  way  of  translating 
Homer. 

I  said  that  Homer  did  not  rise  and  sink  with  his 
subject,  was  never  to  be  called  prosaic  and  low.  This 
gives  surprise  to  many  persons,  who  object  that  parts 
of  the  Iliad  are  certainly  pitched  lower  than  others, 
and  who  remind  me  of  a  number  of  absolutely  level 
passages  in  Homer.  But  I  never  denied  that  a  subject 
must  rise  and  sink,  that  it  must  have  its  elevated  and 
its  level  regions;  all  I  deny  is,  that  a  poet  can  be 
said  to  rise  and  sink  when  all  that  he,  as  a  poet,  can 
do,  is  perfectly  well  done ;  when  he  is  perfectly 
sound  and  good,  that  is,  perfect  as  a  poet,  in  the  level 
regions  of  his  subject  as  well  as  in  its  elevated  regions. 
Indeed,  what  distinguishes  the  greatest  masters  of 
poetry  from  all  others  is,  that  they  are  perfectly 
sound  and  poetical  in  these  level  regions  of 
their  subject, — in  these  regions  which  are  the 
great  difficulty  of  all  poets  but  the  very  greatest, 
which  they  never  quite  know  what  to  do  with.  A 
poet  may  sink  in  these  regions  by  being  falsely  grand 
as  well  as  by  being  low ;  he  sinks,  in  short,  whenever 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  263 

he  does  not  treat  his  matter,  whatever  it  is,  in  a 
perfectly  good  and  poetic  way.  But,  so  long  as  he 
treats  it  in  this  way,  he  cannot  be  said  to  sink,  what- 
ever his  matter  may  do.  A  passage  of  the  simplest 
narrative  is  quoted  to  me  from  Homer  :— 

dxrpvvev  d£  Zkoittov  iwoixi/J-evos  iirieatriv, 

MiaOXrjv  re,  TXavKdv  re,  Midovrd  re,  Qepai\ox6v  re  .   .   .* 

and  I  am  asked,  whether  Homer  does  not  sink  there  ; 

whether  he  "  can  have  intended  such  lines  as  those 

for  poetry  t "      My  answer  is  :  Those  lines  are  very 

good  poetry  indeed,  poetry  of  the  best  class,  in  that 

place.     But  when  Wordsworth,  having  to  narrate  a 

very  plain  matter,  tries  not  to  sink  in  narrating  it, 

tries,  in  short,  to  be  what  is  falsely  called  poetical,  he 

does  sink,  although  he  sinks  by  being  pompous,  not 

by  being  low. 

"  Onward  we  drove  beneath  the  Castle  ;  caught, 
"While  crossing  Magdalen  Bridge,  a  glimpse  of  Cam, 
And  at  the  Hoop  alighted,  famous  inn." 

That  last  line  shows  excellently  how  a  poet  may  sink 
with  his  subject  by  resolving  not  to  sink  with  it.  A 
page  or  two  farther  on,  the  subject  rises  to  grandeur, 
and  then  Wordsworth  is  nobly  worthy  of  it : — 

"  The  antechapel,  where  the  statue  stood 
Of  Newton  with  his  prism  and  silent  face, 
The  marble  index  of  a  mind  for  ever 
Voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  thought,  alone." 

But  the  supreme  poet  is  he  who  is  thoroughly  sound 

and  poetical,  alike  when  his  subject  is  grand,  and 

when  it  is  plain  :  with  him  the  subject  may  sink,  but 

1  Iliad,  xvii.  216. 


264  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

never  the  poet.  But  a  Dutch  painter  does  not  rise 
and  sink  with  his  subject, — Defoe,  in  Moll  Flanders, 
does  not  rise  and  sink  with  his  subject, — in  so  far  as 
an  artist  cannot  be  said  to  sink  who  is  sound  in  his 
treatment  of  his  subject,  however  plain  it  is  :  yet 
Defoe,  yet  a  Dutch  painter,  may  in  one  sense  be  said 
to  sink  with  their  subject,  because  though  sound  in 
their  treatment  of  it,  they  are  not  poetical, — poetical 
in  the  true,  not  the  false  sense  of  the  word ;  because, 
in  fact,  they  are  not  in  the  grand  style.  Homer  can 
in  no  sense  be  said  to  sink  with  his  subject,  because 
his  soundness  has  something  more  than  literal  natural- 
ness about  it ;  because  his  soundness  is  the  soundness 
of  Homer,  of  a  great  epic  poet ;  because,  in  fact,  he  is 
in  the  grand  style.  So  he  sheds  over  the  simplest 
matter  he  touches  the  charm  of  his  grand  manner ; 
he  makes  everything  noble.  Nothing  has  raised  more 
questioning  among  my  critics  than  these  words, — 
noble,  the  grand  style.  People  complain  that  I  do  not 
define  these  words  sufficiently,  that  I  do  not  tell  them 
enough  about  them.  "The  grand  style, — but  what 
is  the  grand  style  1 " — they  cry ;  some  with  an  incli- 
nation to  believe  in  it,  but  puzzled ;  others  mockingly 
and  with  incredulity.  Alas  !  the  grand  style  is  the 
last  matter  in  the  world  for  verbal  definition  to  deal 
with  adequately.  One  may  say  of  it  as  is  said  of 
faith :  "  One  must  feel  it  in  order  to  know  what  it 
is."  But,  as  of  faith,  so  too  one  may  say  of  noble- 
ness, of  the  grand  style  :  "  Woe  to  those  who  know 
it  not !  "  Yet  this  expression,  though  indefinable,  has 
a  charm ;  one  is  the  better  for  considering  it ;  bovum 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER  265 

est,  nos  hie  esse ;  nay,  one  loves  to  try  to  explain  it, 
though  one  knows  that  one  must  speak  imperfectly. 
For  those,  then,  who  ask  the  question, — What  is  the 
grand  style  1 — with  sincerity,  I  will  try  to  make  some 
answer,  inadequate  as  it  must  be.  For  those  who 
ask  it  mockingly  I  have  no  answer,  except  to  repeat 
to  them,  with  compassionate  sorrow,  the  Gospel  words : 
Moriemini  inpeccatis  vestris, — Ye  shall  die  in  your  sins. 
But  let  me,  at  any  rate,  have  the  pleasure  of  again 
giving,  before  I  begin  to  try  and  define  the  grand 
style,  a  specimen  of  what  it  is. 

"  Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  pole, 
More  safe  I  sing  with  mortal  voice,  unchanged 
To  hoarse  or  mute,  though  fall'n  on  evil  days, 
On  evil  days  though  fall'n,  and  evil  tongues."  .  .   , 

There  is  the  grand  style  in  perfection ;  and  any  one 
Avho  has  a  sense  for  it,  will  feel  it  a  thousand  times 
better  from  repeating  those  lines  than  from  hearing 
anything  I  can  say  about  it. 

Let  us  try,  however,  what  can  be  said,  controlling 
what  we  say  by  examples.  I  think  it  will  be  found 
that  the  grand  style  arises  in  poetry,  when  a  noble 
nature,  poetically  gifted,  treats  with  simplicity  or  with 
severity  a  serious  subject.  I  think  this  definition  will 
be  found  to  cover  all  instances  of  the  grand  style  in 
poetry  which  present  themselves.  I  think  it  will  be 
found  to  exclude  all  poetry  which  is  not  in  the  grand 
style.  And  I  think  it  contains  no  terms  which  are 
obscure,  which  themselves  need  defining.  Even  those 
who  do  not  understand  what  is  meant  by  calling 
poetry  noble,   will  understand,   I   imagine,   what   is 


266  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

meant  by  speaking  of  a  noble  nature  in  a  man.  But 
the  noble  or  powerful  nature — the  bedeutendes  indi- 
viduum  of  Goethe — is  not  enough.  For  instance,  Mi- 
Newman  has  zeal  for  learning,  zeal  for  thinking,  zeal 
for  liberty,  and  all  these  things  are  noble,  they  ennoble 
a  man ;  but  he  has  not  the  poetical  gift :  there  must 
be  the  poetical  gift,  the  "divine  faculty,"  also.  And, 
besides  all  this,  the  subject  must  be  a  serious  one  (for 
it  is  only  by  a  kind  of  license  that  we  can  speak  of 
the  grand  style  in  comedy) ;  and  it  must  be  treated 
with  simplicity  or  severity.  Here  is  the  great  difficulty  : 
the  poets  of  the  world  have  been  many ;  there  has 
been  wanting  neither  abundance  of  poetical  gift  nor 
abundance  of  noble  natures;  but  a  poetical  gift  so 
happy,  in  a  noble  nature  so  circumstanced  and  trained, 
that  the  result  is  a  continuous  style,  perfect  in  sim- 
plicity or  perfect  in  severity,  has  been  extremely  rare. 
One  poet  has  had  the  gifts  of  nature  and  faculty  in 
unequalled  fulness,  without  the  circumstances  and 
training  which  make  this  sustained  perfection  of  style 
possible.  Of  other  poets,  some  have  caught  this  per- 
fect strain  now  and  then,  in  short  pieces  or  single 
lines,  but  have  not  been  able  to  maintain  it  through 
considerable  works ;  others  have  composed  all  their 
productions  in  a  style  which,  by  comparison  with  the 
best,  one  must  call  secondary. 

The  best  model  of  the  grand  style  simple  is  Homer ; 
perhaps  the  best  model  of  the  grand  style  severe  is 
Milton.  But  Dante  is  remarkable  for  affording  ad- 
mirable examples  of  both  styles  ;  he  has  the  grand 
style  which  arises  from  simplicity,  and  he  has  the 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  267 

grand  style  which  arises  from  severity ;  and  from  him 
I  will  illustrate  them  both.  In  a  former  lecture  I 
pointed  out  what  that  severity  of  poetical  style  is, 
which  comes  from  saying  a  thing  with  a  kind  of  in- 
tense compression,  or  in  an  allusive,  brief,  almost 
haughty  way,  as  if  the  poet's  mind  were  charged  with 
so  many  and  such  grave  matters,  that  he  would  not 
deign  to  treat  any  one  of  them  explicitly.  Of  this 
severity  the  last  line  of  the  following  stanza  of  the 
Purgatory  is  a  good  example.  Dante  has  been  telling 
Forese  that  Virgil  had  guided  him  through  Hell,  and 
he  goes  on  : — 

"  Indi  m'  han  tratto  su  gli  suoi  conforti, 
Salendo  e  rigirando  la  Montagna 
Che  drizza  voi  che  il  mondofece  torti."1 

"  Thence  hath  his  comforting  aid  led  me  up,  climbing 
and  circling  the  Mountain,  which  straightens  you  whom  the 
world  made  crooked"  These  last  words,  " la  Montagna 
che  drizza  voi  che  il  mondo  fece  torti." — "  the  Mountain 
which  straightens  you  whom  the  world  made  crooked" — 
for  the  Mountain  of  Purgatory,  I  call  an  excellent 
specimen  of  the  grand  style  in  severity,  where  the 
poet's  mind  is  too  full  charged  to  suffer  him  to  speak 
more  explicitly.  But  the  very  next  stanza  is  a  beau- 
tiful specimen  of  the  grand  style  in  simplicity,  where 
a  noble  nature  and  a  poetical  gift  unite  to  utter  a 
thing  with  the  most  limpid  plainness  and  clearness : — 

"Tanto  dice  di  farmi  sua  compagua 
Ch'  io  sar6  la  dove  fia  Beatrice  ; 
Quivi  convien  che  senza  lui  rimagna. "  2 

1  Purgatory,  xxiii.  124.  2  Ibid,  xxiii.  127. 


268  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

"  So  long,"  Dante  continues,  "  so  long  he  (Virgil) 
saith  he  will  bear  me  company,  until  I  shall  be  there 
where  Beatrice  is ;  there  it  behoves  that  without  him 
I  remain."  But  the  noble  simplicity  of  that  in  the 
Italian  no  words  of  mine  can  render. 

Both  these  styles,  the  simple  and  the  severe,  are 
truly  grand ;  the  severe  seems,  perhaps,  the  grandest, 
so  long  as  we  attend  most  to  the  great  personality,  to 
the  noble  nature,  in  the  poet  its  author ;  the  simple 
seems  the  grandest  when  we  attend  most  to  the 
exquisite  faculty,  to  the  poetical  gift.  But  the  simple 
is  no  doubt  to  be  preferred.  It  is  the  more  magical  : 
in  the  other  there  is  something  intellectual,  something 
which  gives  scope  for  a  play  of  thought  which  may 
exist  where  the  poetical  gift  is  either  wanting  or  pre- 
sent in  only  inferior  degree  :  the  severe  is  much  more 
imitable,  and  this  a  little  spoils  its  charm.  A  kind 
of  semblance  of  this  style  keeps  Young  going,  one 
may  say,  through  all  the  nine  parts  of  that  most  in- 
different production,  the  Night  Thoughts.  But  the 
grand  style  in  simplicity  is  inimitable : 

cu'dw  d<7<£a\7?S 
ovk  'iyevr  out  AlaKi8q,  irapa.  Ylyjkei, 
oiire  trap'  avridio}  Kao/j.(±>  '  XiyovTCLi.  /j.av  j3porujv 
8\j3ov  vwiprarov  ol  crxe2V,  o'l  re  Ktxl  xpvcafXTri/Kcov 
fieXirop-evdv  iv  opei  Moicae,  Kal  if  eirTairuXois 
dl'ov  Qrjj3a.is  .   .    -1 


1  "  A  secure  time  fell  to  the  lot  neither  of  Pcleus  the  son  of 
yEacus,  nor  of  the  godlike  Cadmus  ;  howbeit  these  are  said  to 
have  had,  of  all  mortals,  the  supreme  of  happiness,  who  heard 
the  golden-snooded  Muses  sing,  one  of  them  on  the  mountain 
(Pelion),  the  other  in  seven -gated  Thebes." 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  269 

There  is  a  limpidness  in  that,  a  want  of  salient  points 
to  seize  and  transfer,  which  makes  imitation  impos- 
sible, except  by  a  genius  akin  to  the  genius  which 
produced  it. 

Greek  simplicity  and  Greek  grace  are  inimitable ; 
but  it  is  said  that  the  Iliad  may  still  be  ballad-poetry 
while  infinitely  superior  to  all  other  ballads,  and  that, 
in  my  specimens  of  English  ballad-poetry,  I  have  been 
unfair.  Well,  no  doubt  there  are  better  things  in 
English  ballad-poetry  than 

"Now  Christ  thee  save,  thou  proud  porter,"  .  .  . 

but  the  real  strength  of  a  chain,  they  say,  is  the 
strength  of  its  weakest  link ;  and  what  I  was  trying 
to  show  you  was,  that  the  English  ballad-style  is  not 
an  instrument  of  enough  compass  and  force  to  corre- 
spond to  the  Greek  hexameter;  that,  owing  to  an 
inherent  weakness  in  it  as  an  epic  style,  it  easily  runs 
into  one  of  two  faults, — either  it  is  prosaic  and  hum- 
drum, or,  trying  to  avoid  that  fault,  and  to  make 
itself  lively  (sefaire  vif),  it  becomes  pert  and  jaunty. 
To  show  that,  the  passage  about  King  Adland's  porter 
serves  very  wTell.  But  these  degradations  are  not 
proper  to  a  true  epic  instrument,  such  as  the  Greek 
hexameter. 

You  may  say,  if  you  like,  when  you  find  Homer's 
verse,  even  in  describing  the  plainest  matter,  neither 
humdrum  nor  jaunty,  that  this  is  because  he  is  so 
incomparably  better  a  poet  than  other  balladists,  be- 
cause he  is  Homer.  But  take  the  whole  ransre  of 
Greek  epic  poetry, — take  the  later  poets,  the  poets  of 


270  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

the  last  ages   of    this  poetry,  many   of  them   most 
indifferent,  —  Coluthus,    Tryphiodorus,    Quintus    of 
Smyrna,   Nonnus.     Never  will  you  find  in  this  in- 
strument of  the  hexameter,  even  in  their  hands,  the 
vices  of  the  ballad-style  in  the  weak  moments  of  this 
last :  everywhere  the   hexameter — a  noble,   a  truly 
epical  instrument — rather  resists  the  weakness  of  its 
employer  than  lends  itself  to  it.     Quintus  of  Smyrna 
is  a  poet  of  merit,  but  certainly  not  a  poet  of  a  high 
order;  with   him,  too,  epic  poetry,  whether  in  the 
character  of  its  prosody  or  in  that  of  its  diction,  is  no 
longer  the  epic  poetry  of  earlier  and  better  times,  nor 
epic  poetry  as  again  restored  by  Nonnus :  but  even  in 
Quintus  of  Smyrna,  I  say,  the  hexameter  is  still  the 
hexameter ;  it  is  a  style  which  the  ballad-style,  even 
in  the  hands  of  better  poets,  cannot  rival.     And  in 
the  hands  of  inferior  poets,  the  ballad-style  sinks  to 
vices  of  which  the  hexameter,  even  in  the  hands  of  a 
Tryphiodorus,  never  can  become  guilty. 

But  a  critic,  whom  it  is  impossible  to  read  without 
pleasure,  and  the  disguise  of  whose  initials  I  am  sure 
I  may  be  allowed  to  penetrate,— Mr.  Spedding,— says 
that  he  "denies  altogether  that  the  metrical  move- 
ment of  the  English  hexameter  has  any  resemblance 
to  that  of  the  Greek."  Of  course,  in  that  case,  if  the 
two  metres  in  no  respect  correspond,  praise  accorded 
to  the  Greek  hexameter  as  an  epical  instrument  will 
not  extend  to  the  English.  Mr.  Spedding  seeks  to 
establish  his  proposition  by  pointing  out  that  the 
system  of  accentuation  differs  in  the  English  and  in 
the  Virgilian  hexameter ;  that  in  the  first,  the  accent 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  271 

and  the  long  syllable  (or  what  has  to  do  duty  as  such) 
coincide,  in  the  second  they  do  not.  He  says  that  we 
cannot  be  so  sure  of  the  accent  with  which  Greek 
verse  should  be  read  as  of  that  with  which  Latin 
should;  but  that  the  lines  of  Homer  in  which  the 
accent  and  the  long  syllable  coincide,  as  in  the  Eng- 
lish hexameter,  are  certainly  very  rare.  He  suggests 
a  type  of  English  hexameter  in  agreement  with  the 
Virgilian  model,  and  formed  on  the  supposition  that 
"  quantity  is  as  distinguishable  in  English  as  in  Latin 
or  Greek  by  any  ear  that  will  attend  to  it."  Of  the 
truth  of  this  supposition  he  entertains  no  doubt. 
The  new  hexameter  will,  Mr.  Spedding  thinks,  at 
least  have  the  merit  of  resembling,  in  its  metrical 
movement,  the  classical  hexameter,  which  merit  the 
ordinary  English  hexameter  has  not.  But  even  with 
this  improved  hexameter  he  is  not  satisfied ;  and  he 
goes  on,  first  to  suggest  other  metres  for  rendering 
Homer,  and  finally  to  suggest  that  rendering  Homer 
is  impossible. 

A  scholar  to  whom  all  who  admire  Lucretius  owe 
a  large  debt  of  gratitude,— Mr.  Munro,— has  replied 
to  Mr.  Spedding.  Mr.  Munro  declares  that  "the 
accent  of  the  old  Greeks  and  Romans  resembled  our 
accent  only  in  name,  in  reality  was  essentially  differ- 
ent ; "  that  "  our  English  reading  of  Homer  and 
Virgil  has  in  itself  no  meaning ; "  and  that  "  accent 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Virgilian  hexameter."  If 
this  be  so,  of  course  the  merit  which  Mr.  Spedding 
attributes  to  his  own  hexameter,  of  really  correspond- 
ing with  the  Virgilian  hexameter,  has  no  existence. 


272  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

Again ;  in  contradiction  to  Mr.  Spedding's  assertion 
that  lines  in  which  (in  our  reading  of  them)  the  accent 
and  the  long  syllable  coincide,1  as  in  the  ordinary 
English  hexameter,  are  "  rare  even  in  Homer,"  Mr. 
Munro  declares  that  such  lines,  "  instead  of  being 
rare,  are  among  the  very  commonest  types  of  Homeric 
rhythm."  Mr.  Spedding  asserts  that  "  quantity  is 
as  distinguishable  in  English  as  in  Latin  or  Greek 
by  any  ear  that  will  attend  to  it ; "  but  Mr.  Munro 
replies,  that  in  English  "neither  his  ear  nor  his 
reason  recognises  any  real  distinction  of  quantity 
except  that  which  is  produced  by  accentuated  and 
unaccentuated  syllables."  He  therefore  arrives  at 
the  conclusion  that  in  constructing  English  hexa- 
meters, "  quantity  must  be  utterly  discarded  ;  and 
longer  or  shorter  unaccentuated  syllables  can  have  no 
meaning,  except  so  far  as  they  may  be  made  to  pro- 
duce sweeter  or  harsher  sounds  in  the  hands  of  a 
master." 

It  is  not  for  me  to  interpose  between  two  such 
combatants ;  and  indeed  my  way  lies,  not  up  the 
highroad  where  they  are  contending,  but  along  a 
bypath.  With  the  absolute  truth  of  their  general 
propositions  respecting  accent  and  quantity,  I  have 
nothing  to  do ;  it  is  most  interesting  and  instructive 
to  me  to  hear  such  propositions  discussed,  when  it  is 
Mr.  Munro  or  Mr.  Spedding  who  discusses  them ; 
but  I  have  strictly  limited  myself  in  these  Lectures 
to  the  humble  function  of  giving  practical  advice  to 

1  Lines  such  as  the  first  of  the  Odyssey : 
"Avopa  fioi  Hvveire,  Movaa.  iroMrpoTrov,  8?  fid\a  ToXXa  .   „  , 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  273 

the  translator  of  Homer.  He,  I  still  think,  must  not 
follow  so  confidently,  as  makers  of  English  hexameters 
have  hitherto  followed,  Mr.  Munro's  maxim, — quantity 
may  be  utterly  discarded.  He  must  not,  like  Mr.  Long- 
fellow, make  seventeen  a  dactyl  in  spite  of  all  the 
length  of  its  last  syllahle,  even  though  he  can  plead 
that  in  counting  we  lay  the  accent  on  the  first  syllable 
of  this  word.  He  may  he  far  from  attaining  Mr. 
Spedding's  nicety  of  ear ; — may  be  unable  to  feel  that 
"  while  quantity  is  a  dactyl,  quiddity  is  a  tribrach,"  and 
that  "  rapidly  is  a  word  to  which  we  find  no  parallel 
in  Latin ; " — but  I  think  he  must  bring  himself  to 
distinguish,  with  Mr.  Spedding,  between  "  tti  der- 
wearied  eyelid,"  and  "  the  wearied  eyelid,"  as  being, 
the  one  a  correct  ending  for  a  hexameter,  the  other 
an  ending  with  a  false  quantity  in  it;  instead  of 
finding,  with  Mr.  Munro,  that  this  distinction  "  con- 
veys to  his  mind  no  intelligible  idea."  He  must 
temper  his  belief  in  Mr.  Munro's  dictum, — quantity 
must  be  utterly  discarded, — by  mixing  with  it  a  belief 
in  this  other  dictum  of  the  same  author, — two  or  more 
consonants  take  longer  time  in  enunciating  than  one.1 

1  Substantially,  however,  in  the  question  at  issue  between 
Mr.  Munro  and  Mr.  Spedding,  I  agree  with  Mr.  Munro.  By 
the  italicised  words  in  the  following  sentence,  "  The  rhythm  of 
the  Virgilian  hexameter  depends  entirely  on  caesura,  pause,  and 
a  due  arrangement  of  words,"  he  has  touched,  it  seems  to  me, 
in  the  constitution  of  this  hexameter,  the  central  point,  which 
Mr.  Spedding  misses.  The  accent,  or  Jwightcncd  tone,  of  Virgil 
in  reading  his  own  hexameters,  was  probably  far  from  being  the 
same  thing  as  the  accent  or  stress  with  which  we  read  them. 
The  general  effect  of  each  line,  in  Virgil's  mouth,  was  probably 
therefore  something  widely  different  from  what  Mr.  Spedding 

VOL.   II.  T 


274  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

Criticism  is  so  apt  in  general  to  be  vague  and  im- 
palpable, that  when  it  gives  us  a  solid  and  definite 
possession,  such  as  is  Mr.  Spedding's  parallel  of  the 
Virgilian  and  the  English  hexameter  with  their  differ- 
ence of  accentuation  distinctly  marked,  we  cannot  be 
too  grateful  to  it.  It  is  in  the  way  in  which  Mr. 
Spedding  proceeds  to  press  his  conclusions  from  the 
parallel  which  he  has  drawn  out,  that  his  criticism 
seems  to  me  to  come  a  little  short.  Here  even  he,  I 
think,  shows  (if  he  will  allow  me  to  say  so)  a  little 
of  that  want  of  pliancy  and  suppleness  so  common 
among  critics,  but  so  dangerous  to  their  criticism  ;  he 
is  a  little  too  absolute  in  imposing  his  metrical  laws  ; 
he  too  much  forgets  the  excellent  maxim  of  Menander, 
so  applicable  to  literary  criticism  : — 

KaXoj'  ol  v6/j.oi  <r<p6op  elalv '  6  5'  bpQv  tovs  vb/xovs 
\iav  d/c/3i/3ws,  (rvK0<puvT7]s  (palverai' 

"  Laws  are  admirable  things ;  but  he  who  keeps  his 
eye  too  closely  fixed  upon  them,  runs  the  risk  of 
becoming  " — let  us  say,  a  purist.     Mr.  Spedding  is 

assumes  it  to  have  been  :  an  ancient's  accentual  reading  was 
something  which  allowed  the  metrical  beat  of  the  Latin  line  to 
be  far  more  perceptible  than  our  accentual  reading  allows  it  to 
be. 

On  the  question  as  to  the  real  rhythm  of  the  ancient 
hexameter,  Mr.  Newman  has  in  his  Rephj  a  page  quite  admir- 
able for  force  and  precision.  Here  he  is  in  his  element,  and  his 
ability  and  acuteness  have  their  proper  scope.  But  it  is  true 
that  the  modern  reading  of  the  ancient  hexameter  is  what  the 
modern  hexameter  has  to  imitate,  and  that  the  English  reading 
of  the  Virgilian  hexameter  is  as  Mr.  Spedding  describes  it. 
Why  this  reading  has  not  been  imitated  by  the  English  hexa- 
meter, I  have  tried  to  point  out  in  the  text. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  275 

probably  mistaken  in  supposing  that  Virgil  pro- 
nounced his  hexameters  as  Mr.  Spedcling  pronounces 
them.  He  is  almost  certainly  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  Homer  pronounced  his  hexameters  as  Mr.  Sped- 
ding  pronounces  Virgil's.  But  this,  as  I  have  said,  is 
not  a  question  for  us  to  treat ;  all  we  are  here  con- 
cerned with  is  the  imitation,  by  the  English  hexameter, 
of  the  ancient  hexameter  in  its  effect  upon  us  moderns. 
Suppose  we  concede  to  Mr.  Spedding  that  his  parallel 
proves  our  accentuation  of  the  English  and  of  the 
Virgilian  hexameter  to  be  different :  what  are  we  to 
conclude  from  that ;  how  will  a  criticism — not  a  for- 
mal, but  a  substantial  criticism — deal  with  such  a  fact 
as  that  1  Will  it  infer,  as  Mr.  Spedding  infers,  that 
the  English  hexameter,  therefore,  must  not  pretend  to 
reproduce  better  than  other  rhythms  the  movement 
of  Homer's  hexameter  for  us, — that  there  can  be  no 
correspondence  at  all  between  the  movement  of  these 
two  hexameters, — that  if  we  Avant  to  have  such  a 
correspondence,  we  must  abandon  the  current  English 
hexameter  altogether,  and  adopt  in  its  place  a  new 
hexameter  of  Mr.  Spedding's  Anglo-Latin  type, — 
substitute  for  lines  like  the 

"  Clearly  the  rest  I  behold  of  the  dark-eyed  sons  of  Achaia  "  .  . 
of  Dr.  Hawtrey,  lines  like  the 

"  Procession,  complex  melodies,  pause,  quantity,  accent, 
After  Virgilian  precedent  and  practice,  in  order  "... 

of  Mr.  Spedding  ?  To  infer  this,  is  to  go,  as  I  have 
complained  of  Mr.  Newman  for  sometimes  going,  a 
great  deal  too  fast.     I  think  prudent  criticism  must 


276  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

certainly  recognise,  in  the  current  English  hexameter, 
a  fact  which  cannot  so  lightly  be  set  aside ;  it  must 
acknowledge  that  by  this  hexameter  the  English  ear, 
the  genius  of  the  English  language,  have,  in  their 
own  way,  adopted,  have  translated  for  themselves  the 
Homeric  hexameter ;  and  that  a  rhythm  which  has 
thus  grown  up,  which  is  thus,  in  a  manner,  the  pro- 
duction of  nature,  has  in  its  general  type  something 
necessary  and  inevitable,  something  which  admits 
change  only  within  narrow  limits,  which  precludes 
change  that  is  sweeping  and  essential.  I  think, 
therefore,  the  prudent  critic  will  regard  Mr.  Sped- 
ding's  proposed  revolution  as  simply  impracticable. 
He  will  feel  that  in  English  poetry  the  hexameter,  if 
used  at  all,  must  be,  in  the  main,  the  English  hexa- 
meter now  current.  He  will  perceive  that  its  having 
come  into  existence  as  the  representative  of  the 
Homeric  hexameter,  proves  it  to  have,  for  the  English 
ear,  a  certain  correspondence  with  the  Homeric  hexa- 
meter, although  this  correspondence  may  be,  from 
the  difference  of  the  Greek  and  English  languages, 
necessarily  incomplete.  This  incompleteness  he  will 
endeavour,1  as  he   may  find  or  fancy  himself  able, 

1  Such  a  minor  change  I  have  attempted  by  occasionally 
shifting,  in  the  first  foot  of  the  hexameter,  the  accent  from  the 
first  syllable  to  the  second.  In  the  current  English  hexameter, 
it  is  on  the  first.  Mr.  Spedding,  who  proposes  radically  to 
subvert  the  constitution  of  this  hexameter,  seems  not  to  under- 
stand that  any  one  can  propose  to  modify  it  partially  ;  he  can 
comprehend  revolution  in  this  metre,  but  not  reform.  Accord- 
ingly he  asks  me  how  I  can  bring  myself  to  say,  "i?<ft\veen 
that  and  the  ships,"  or  "  There  sat  fifty  men  ; "  or  how  I  can 
reconcile  such  forcing  of  the  accent  with  my  own  rule,  that 

• 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  277 

gradually  somewhat  to  lessen  through  minor  changes, 
suggested  by  the  ancient  hexameter,  but  respecting 
the  general  constitution  of  the  modern  :  the  notion  of 
making  it  disappear  altogether  by  the  critic's  invent- 
ing in  his  closet  a  new  constitution  of  his  own  for  the 
English  hexameter,  he  will  judge  to  be  a  chimerical 
dream. 

When,  therefore,  Mr.  Spedding  objects  to  the 
English  hexameter,  that  it  imperfectly  represents  the 
movement  of  the  ancient  hexameters,  I  answer :  We 

"  hexameters  must  read  themselves.''''  Presently  he  says  that  he 
cannot  believe  I  do  pronounce  these  words  so,  but  that  he  thinks 
I  leave  out  the  accent  in  the  first  foot  altogether,  and  thus  get 
a  hexameter  with  only  five  accents.  He  will  pardon  me :  I 
pronounce,  as  I  suppose  he  himself  does,  if  he  reads  the  words 
naturally,  "Between  that  and  the  ships,"  and  "there  sat 
fifty  men."  Mr.  Spedding  is  familiar  enough  with  this  accent 
on  the  second  syllable  in  Virgil's  hexameters  ;  in  "  et  U  mon- 
tosa,"  or  "  Ve/oces  jaculo."  Such  a  change  is  an  attempt  to 
relieve  the  monotony  of  the  current  English  hexameter  by 
occasionally  altering  the  position  of  one  of  its  accents  ;  it  is  not 
an  attempt  to  make  a  wholly  new  English  hexameter  by  habit- 
ually altering  the  position  of  four  of  them.  Very  likely  it  is 
an  unsuccessful  attempt ;  but  at  any  rate  it  does  not  violate 
what  I  think  is  the  fundamental  rule  for  English  hexameters, — 
that  they  be  such  as  to  read  themselves  without  necessitating,  on 
the  reader's  part,  any  non -natural  putting-on  or  taking- off 
accent.     Hexameters  like  these  of  Mr.  Longfellow, 

"  In   that   delightful  land   which  is    washed  by  the  Delaware's 

waters, " 
and, 

"  As  if  they  fain  would  appease  the  Dryads,  whose  haunts  they 
molested," 

violate  this  rule  ;  and  they  are  very  common.  I  think  the 
blemish  of  Mr.  Dart's  recent  meritorious  version  of  the  Iliad  is 
that  it  contains  too  many  of  them. 


278  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

must  work  with  the  tools  we  have.  The  received 
English  type,  in  its  general  outlines,  is,  for  England, 
the  necessary  given  type  of  this  metre;  it  is  hy 
rendering  the  metrical  beat  of  its  pattern,  not  by 
rendering  the  accentual  beat  of  it,  that  the  English 
language  has  adapted  the  Greek  hexameter.  To 
render  the  metrical  beat  of  its  pattern  is  something ; 
by  effecting  so  much  as  this  the  English  hexameter 
puts  itself  in  closer  relations  with  its  original,  it 
comes  nearer  to  its  movement  than  any  other  metre 
which  does  not  even  effect  so  much  as  this ;  but  Mr. 
Spedding  is  dissatisfied  with  it  for  not  effecting  more 
still,  for  not  rendering  the  accentual  beat  too.  If  he 
asks  me  why  the  English  hexameter  has  not  tried  to 
render  this  too,  why  it  has  confined  itself  to  rendering 
the  metrical  beat,  why,  in  short,  it  is  itself,  and  not 
Mr.  Spedding's  new  hexameter, — that  is  a  question 
which  I,  whose  only  business  is  to  give  practical 
advice  to  a  translator,  am  not  bound  to  answer ;  but 
I  will  not  decline  to  answer  it  nevertheless.  I  will 
suggest  to  Mr.  Spedding  that,  as  I  have  already  said, 
the  modern  hexameter  is  merely  an  attempt  to  imitate 
the  effect  of  the  ancient  hexameter,  as  read  by  us 
moderns;  that  the  great  object  of  its  imitation  has 
been  the  hexameter  of  Homer ;  that  of  this  hexameter 
such  lines  as  those  which  Mr.  Spedding  declares  to 
be  so  rare,  even  in  Homer,  but  which  are  in  truth 
so  common, — lines  in  which  the  quantity  and  the 
reader's  accent  coincide, — are,  for  the  English  reader, 
just  from  that  simplicity  (for  him)  of  rhythm  which 
they  owe  to  this  very  coincidence,  the  master-type ; 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  279 

that  so  much  is  this  the  case,  that  one  may  again  and 
again  notice  an  English  reader  of  Homer,  in  reading 
lines  where  his  Virgilian  accent  would  not  coincide 
with  the  quantity,  abandoning  this  accent,  and  read- 
ing the  lines  (as  we  say)  by  quantity,  reading  them  as 
if  he  were  scanning  them;  Avhile  foreigners  neglect 
our  Virgilian  accent  even  in  reading  Virgil,  read  even 
Virgil  by  quantity,  making  the  accents  coincide  with 
the  long  syllables.  And  no  doubt  the  hexameter  of 
a  kindred  language,  the  German,  based  on  this  mode 
of  reading  the  ancient  hexameter,  has  had  a  powerful 
influence  upon  the  type  of  its  English  fellow.  But 
all  this  shows  how  extremely  powerful  accent  is  for 
us  moderns,  since  we  find  not  even  Greek  and  Latin 
quantity  perceptible  enough  without  it.  Yet  in  these 
languages,  where  we  have  been  accustomed  always  to 
look  for  it,  it  is  far  more  perceptible  to  us  Englishmen 
than  in  our  own  language,  where  we  have  not  been 
accustomed  to  look  for  it.  And  here  is  the  true 
reason  why  Mr.  Spedding's  hexameter  is  not  and 
cannot  be  the  current  English  hexameter,  even  though 
it  is  based  on  the  accentuation  which  Englishmen 
give  to  all  Virgil's  lines,  and  to  many  of  Homer's, — 
that  the  quantity  which  in  Greek  or  Latin  words  we 
feel,  or  imagine  we  feel,  even  though  it  be  unsup- 
ported by  accent,  we  do  not  feel  or  imagine  we  feel 
in  English  words  when  it  is  thus  unsupported.  For 
example,  in  repeating  the  Latin  line 

"  Ipsa  tibi  blandos  /undent  cunabula  flores, 

an  Englishman  feels  the  length  of  the  second  syllable 


280  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

of  /undent,  although  he  lays  the  accent  on  the  first ; 
but  in  repeating  Mr.  Spedding's  line, 

'  Softly  cometli  slumber  closing  th'  o'erwearied  eyelid," 

the  English  ear,  full  of  the  accent  on  the  first  syllable 
of  closing,  has  really  no  sense  at  all  of  any  length  in 
its  second.  The  metrical  beat  of  the  line  is  thus 
cuiite  destroyed. 

So  when  Mr.  Spedding  proposes  a  new  Anglo- 
Virgilian  hexameter  he  proposes  an  impossibility; 
when  he  "  denies  altogether  that  the  metrical  move- 
ment of  the  English  hexameter  has  any  resemblance 
to  that  of  the  Greek,"  he  denies  too  much;  when  he 
declares  that,  "were  every  other  metre  impossible, 
an  attempt  to  translate  Homer  into  English  hexameters 
might  be  permitted,  but  that  such  an  attempt  he  himself 
would  never  read"  he  exhibits,  it  seems  to  me,  a  little 
of  that  obduracy  and  over-vehemence  in  liking  and 
disliking,  —  a  remnant,  I  suppose,  of  our  insular 
ferocity, — to  which  English  criticism  is  so  prone. 
He  ought  to  be  enchanted  to  meet  with  a  good 
attempt  in  any  metre,  even  though  he  would  never 
have  advised  it,  even  though  its  success  be  contrary 
to  all  his  expectations ;  for  it  is  the  critic's  first  duty 
— prior  even  to  his  duty  of  stigmatising  what  is  bad — 
to  welcome  everything  that  is  good.  In  welcoming  this, 
he  must  at  all  times  be  ready,  like  the  Christian  con- 
vert, even  to  burn  what  he  used  to  worship,  and  to 
worship  what  he  used  to  burn.  Nay,  but  he  need 
not  be  thus  inconsistent  in  welcoming  it;  he  may 
retain  all  his  principles  :  principles  endure,   circum- 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  281 

stances  change ;  absolute  success  is  one  thing,  relative 
success  another.  Kelative  success  may  take  place 
under  the  most  diverse  conditions ;  and  it  is  in 
appreciating  the  good  in  even  relative  success,  it  is  in 
taking  into  account  the  change  of  circumstances,  that 
the  critic's  judgment  is  tested,  that  his  versatility 
must  display  itself.  He  is  to  keep  his  idea  of  the 
best,  of  perfection,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be 
willingly  accessible  to  every  second  best  which  offers 
itself.  So  I  enjoy  the  ease  and  beauty  of  Mr.  Sped- 
ding's  stanza, 

"  Therewith  to  all  the  gods  in  order  due  ..." 

I  welcome  it,  in  the  absence  of  equally  good  poetry 
in  another  metre,1  although  I  still  think  the  stanza 

1  As  I  welcome  another  more  recent  attempt  in  stanza,  — Mr. 
Worsley's  version  of  the  Odyssey  in  Spenser's  measure.  Mr. 
Worsley  does  me  the  honour  to  notice  some  remarks  of  mine  on 
this  measure :  I  had  said  that  its  greater  intricacy  made  it  a 
worse  measure  than  even  the  ten-syllable  couplet  to  employ  for 
rendering  Homer.  He  points  out,  in  answer,  that  "the  more 
complicated  the  correspondences  in  a  poetical  measure,  the  less 
obtrusive  and  absolute  are  the  rhymes."  This  is  true,  and 
subtly  remarked  ;  but  I  never  denied  that  the  single  shocks  of 
rhyme  in  the  couplet  were  more  strongly  felt  than  those  in  the 
stanza  ;  I  said  that  the  more  frequent  recurrence  of  the  same 
rhyme,  in  the  stanza,  necessarily  made  this  measure  more 
intricate.  The  stanza  repacks  Homer's  matter  yet  more  arbit- 
rarily, and  therefore  changes  his  movement  yet  more  radically, 
than  the  couplet.  Accordingly,  I  imagine  a  nearer  approach 
to  a  perfect  translation  of  Homer  is  possible  in  the  couplet,  well 
managed,  than  in  the  stanza,  however  well  managed.  But 
meanwhile  Mr.  Worsley, — applying  the  Spenserian  stanza,  that 
beautiful  romantic  measure,  to  the  most  romantic  poem  of  the 
ancient  world ;  making  this  stanza  yield  him,  too  (what  it 
never  yielded  to  Byron),  its  treasures  of  fluidity  and  sweet  ease; 


282  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

unfit  to  render  Homer  thoroughly  well, — although  I 
still  think  other  metres  fit  to  render  him  better.     So 
I  concede  to  Mr.  Spedding  that  every  form  of  trans- 
lation, prose  or  verse,  must  more  or  less  break  up 
Homer  in  order  to  reproduce  him ;  but  then  I  urge 
that  that  form  which  needs  to  break  him  up  least  is 
to  be  preferred.     So  I  concede  to  him  that  the  test 
proposed   by   me   for   the   translator — a    competent 
scholar's  judgment  whether  the  translation  more  or 
less  reproduces  for  him  the  effect  of  the  original — 
is  not  perfectly  satisfactory;  but  I  adopt  it  as  the 
best  we  can  get,  as  the  only  test  capable  of  being 
really  applied ;  for  Mr.  Spedding's  proposed  substitute 
— the  translations  making  the  same  effect,  more  or 
less,  upon  the  unlearned  which  the  original  makes 
upon  the  scholar — is  a  test  which  can  never  really  be 
applied  at  all.     These  two  impressions — that  of  the 
scholar,    and   that   of    the   unlearned   reader  —  can, 
practically,  never  be  accurately  compared ;  they  are, 
and  must  remain,   like   those   lines  we  read   of   in 
Euclid,    which,    though   produced   ever   so   far,    can 
never  meet.     So,  again,  I  concede  that  a  good  verse- 
translation  of  Homer,  or,  indeed,  of  any  poet,  is  very 
difficult,  and  that  a  good  prose-translation  is  much 
easier;    but   then   I   urge   that   a  verse -translation, 
while  giving  the  pleasure  which  Pope's  has  given, 
might  at  the  same  time  render  Homer  more  faithfully 

above  all,  bringing  to  his  task  a  truly  poetical  sense  and  skill, 
— bas  produced  a  version  of  tbe  Odyssey  much  the  most  pleas- 
ing of  those  hitherto  produced,  and  which  is  delightful  to  read. 
For  the  public  this  may  well  be  enough,  nay,  more  than 
enough  ;  but  for  the  critic  even  this  is  not  yet  quite  enough. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  283 

than  Pope's ;  and  that  this  being  possible,  we  ought 
not  to  cease  wishing  for  a  source  of  pleasure  which 
no  prose-translation  can  ever  hope  to  rival. 

Wishing  for  such  a  verse-translation  of  Homer, 
believing  that  rhythms  have  natural  tendencies  which, 
within  certain  limits,  inevitably  govern  them  ;  having 
little  faith,  therefore,  that  rhythms  which  have  mani- 
fested tendencies  utterly  un-Homeric  can  so  change 
themselves  as  to  become  well  adapted  for  rendering 
Homer, — I  have  looked  about  for  the  rhythm  which 
seems  to  depart  least  from  the  tendencies  of  Homer's 
rhythm.  Such  a  rhythm  I  think  may  be  found  in 
the  English  hexameter,  somewhat  modified.  I  look 
with  hope  towards  continued  attempts  at  perfecting 
and  employing  this  rhythm ;  but  my  belief  in  the 
immediate  success  of  such  attempts  is  far  less  con- 
fident than  has  been  supposed.  Between  the  recogni- 
tion of  this  rhythm  as  ideally  the  best,  and  the 
recommendation  of  it  to  the  translator  for  instant 
practical  use,  there  must  come  all  that  consideration 
of  circumstances,  all  that  pliancy  in  foregoing,  under 
the  pressure  of  certain  difficulties,  the  absolute  best, 
which  I  have  said  is  so  indispensable  to  the  critic. 
The  hexameter  is,  comparatively,  still  unfamiliar  in 
England  ;  many  people  have  a  great  dislike  to  it.  A 
certain  degree  of  unfamiliarity,  a  certain  degree  of  dis- 
like, are  obstacles  with  which  it  is  not  wise  to  contend. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  at  present  whether  the  dislike  tc 
this  rhythm  is  so  strong  and  so  wide-spread  that  it 
will  prevent  its  ever  becoming  thoroughly  familiar. 
I  think  not,  but  it  is  too  soon  to  decide.     I  am  in- 


284  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

clined  to  think  that  the  dislike  of  it  is  rather  among 
the  professional  critics  than  among  the  general  public ; 
I  think  the  reception  which  Mr.  Longfellow's  Evan- 
geline has  met  with  indicates  this.  I  think  that  even 
now,  if  a  version  of  the  Iliad  in  English  hexameters 
were  made  by  a  poet  who,  like  Mr.  Longfellow,  has 
that  indefinable  quality  which  renders  him  popular, — 
something  attractive  in  his  talent,  which  communicates 
itself  to  his  verses, — it  would  have  a  great  success 
among  the  general  public.  Yet  a  version  of  Homer 
in  hexameters  of  the  Evangeline  type  would  not 
satisfy  the  judicious,  nor  is  the  definite  establishment 
of  this  type  to  be  desired  ;  and  one  would  regret  that 
Mr.  Longfellow  should,  even  to  popularise  the  hexa- 
meter, give  the  immense  labour  required  for  a  transla- 
tion of  Homer,  when  one  could  not  wish  his  work  to 
stand.  Kather  it  is  to  be  wished  that  by  the  efforts 
of  poets  like  Mr.  Longfellow  in  original  poetry,  and 
the  efforts  of  less  distinguished  poets  in  the  task  of 
translation,  the  hexameter  may  gradually  be  made 
familiar  to  the  ear  of  the  English  public  ;  at  the  same 
time  that  there  gradually  arises,  out  of  all  these 
efforts,  an  improved  type  of  this  rhythm ;  a  type 
which  some  man  of  genius  may  sign  with  the  final 
stamp,  and  employ  in  rendering  Homer ;  a  hexa- 
meter which  may  be  as  superior  to  Vosse's  as  Shak- 
speare's  blank  verse  is  superior  to  Schiller's.  I  am  in- 
clined to  believe  that  all  this  travail  will  actually  take 
place,  because  I  believe  that  modern  poetry  is  actually 
in  want  of  such  an  instrument  as  the  hexameter. 
In  the  meantime,    whether   this   rhythm   be  des- 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  285 

tincd  to  success  or  not,  let  us  steadily  keep  in 
mind  what  originally  made  us  turn  to  it.  We  turned 
to  it  because  we  required  certain  Homeric  character- 
istics in  a  translation  of  Homer,  and  because  all  other 
rhythms  seemed  to  find,  from  different  causes,  great 
difficulties  in  satisfying  this  our  requirement.  If  the 
hexameter  is  impossible,  if  one  of  these  other  rhythms 
must  be  used,  let  us  keep  this  rhythm  always  in  mind 
of  our  requirements  and  of  its  own  faults,  let  us  com- 
pel it  to  get  rid  of  these  latter  as  much  as  possible. 
It  may  be  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  blank  verse ; 
but  then  blank  verse  must  de-Coivperise  itself,  must 
get  rid  of  the  habits  of  stiff  self-retardation  which 
make  it  say  "  Not  fewer  shone,"  for  "  So  many  shone." 
Homer  moves  swiftly  :  blank  verse  can  move  swiftly 
if  it  likes,  but  it  must  remember  that  the  movement 
of  such  lines  as 

' '  A  thousand  fires  were  burning,  and  by  each  ..." 

is  just  the  slow  movement  which  makes  us  despair  of 
it.  Homer  moves  with  noble  ease  :  blank  verse  must 
not  be  suffered  to  forget  that  the  movement  of 

' '  Came  they  not  over  from  sweet  Lacedsemon  ..." 

is  ungainly.  Homer's  expression  of  his  thought  is 
simple  as  light :  we  know  how  blank  verse  affects 
such  locutions  as 

"  While  the  steeds  mouthed  their  com  aloof  ..." 

and  such  modes  of  expressing  one's  thought  are 
sophisticated  and  artificial. 

One  sees  how  needful  it  is  to  direct  incessantly  the 
English  translator's  attention  to  the  essential  charac- 


286  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

teristics  of  Homer's  poetry,  when  so  accomplished  a 
person  as  Mr.  Speckling,  recognising  these  characteris- 
tics as  indeed  Homer's,  admitting  them  to  be  essential, 
is  led  by  the  ingrained  habits  and  tendencies  of 
English  blank  verse  thus  repeatedly  to  lose  sight  of 
them  in  translating  even  a  few  lines.  One  sees  this 
yet  more  clearly,  when  Mr.  Spedding,  taking  me  to 
task  for  saying  that  the  blank  verse  used  for  render- 
ing Homer  "must  not  be  Mr.  Tennyson's  blank 
verse,"  declares  that  in  most  of  Mr.  Tennyson's  blank 
verse  all  Homer's  essential  characteristics — "  rapidity 
of  movement,  plainness  of  words  and  style,  simplicity  and 
directness  of  ideas,  and,  above  all,  nobleness  of  manner 
— are  as  conspicuous  as  in  Homer  himself."  This 
shows,  it  seems  to  me,  how  hard  it  is  for  English 
readers  of  poetry,  even  the  most  accomplished,  to  feel 
deeply  and  permanently  what  Greek  plainness  of 
thought  and  Greek  simplicity  of  expression  really 
are :  they  admit  the  importance  of  these  qualities  in 
a  general  way,  but  they  have  no  ever-present  sense  of 
them ;  and  they  easily  attribute  them  to  any  poetry 
which  has  other  excellent  qualities,  and  which  they 
very  much  admire.  No  doubt  there  are  plainer 
things  in  Mr.  Tennyson's  poetry  than  the  three  lines 
I  quoted ;  in  choosing  them,  as  in  choosing  a  speci- 
men of  ballad-poetry,  I  wished  to  bring  out  clearly, 
by  a  strong  instance,  the  qualities  of  thought  and 
style  to  which  I  was  calling  attention  ;  but  when  Mr. 
Spedding  talks  of  a  plainness  of  thought  like  Homer's, 
of  a  plainness  of  speech  like  Homer's,  and  says  that 
he  finds  these  constantly  in  Mr.  Tennyson's  poetry,  I 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  287 

answer  that  these  I  do  not  find  there  at  all.  Mr. 
Tennyson  is  a  most  distinguished  and  charming  poet ; 
but  the  very  essential  characteristic  of  his  poetry  is, 
it  seems  to  me,  an  extreme  subtlety  and  curious 
elaborateness  of  thought,  an  extreme  subtlety  and  curi- 
ous elaborateness  of  expression.  In  the  best  and  most 
characteristic  productions  of  his  genius,  these  charac- 
teristics are  most  prominent.  They  are  marked  char- 
acteristics, as  we  have  seen,  of  the  Elizabethan  poets ; 
they  are  marked,  though  not  the  essential,  character- 
istics of  Shakspeare  himself.  Under  the  influences 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  under  wholly  new  condi- 
tions of  thought  and  culture,  they  manifest  them- 
selves in  Mr.  Tennyson's  poetry  in  a  wholly  new  way. 
But  they  are  still  there.  The  essential  bent  of  his 
poetry  is  towards  such  expressions  as — 

"  Now  lies  the  Earth  all  Danae  to  the  stars ;  " 

"  O'er  the  sun's  bright  eye 
Drew  the  vast  eyelid  of  an  inky  cloud ;  " 

"  When  the  cairned  mountain  was  a  shadow,  sunned 
The  world  to  peace  again  ;" 

'  The  fresh  young  captains  flashed  their  glittering  teetb, 
The  huge  bush-bearded  barons  heaved  and  blew ;  " 

"  He  bared  the  knotted  column  of  his  throat, 
The  massive  square  of  his  heroic  breast, 
And  arms  on  which  the  standing  muscle  sloped 
As  slopes  a  wild  brook  o'er  a  little  stone, 
Running  too  vehemently  to  break  upon  it." 

And  this  way  of  speaking  is  the  least  plain,  the  most 
un-Homeric,  which  can  possibly  be  conceived.  Homer 
presents  his  thought  to  you  just  as  it  wells  from  the 
source  of  his  mind  :  Mr.  Tennyson  carefully  distils  his 


288  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

thought  before  he  will  part  with  it.  Hence  comes,  in 
the  expression  of  the  thought,  a  heightened  and  ela- 
borate air.  In  Homer's  poetry  it  is  all  natural  thoughts 
in  natural  words ;  in  Mr.  Tennyson's  poetry  it  is  all 
distilled  thoughts  in  distilled  words.  Exactly  this 
heightening  and  elaboration  may  be  observed  in  Mr. 
Spedding's 

"While  the  steeds  mouthed  their  corn  aloof," 

(an  expression  which  might  have  been  Mr.  Tennyson's) 

on  which  I  have  already  commented ;  and  to  one  who 

is  penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  real  simplicity  of 

Homer,  this  subtle  sophistication  of  the  thought  is,  I 

think,  very  perceptible  even  in  such  lines  as  these, — 

"  And  drunk  delight  of  battle  with  my  peers, 
Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  windy  Troy, " — 

which  I  have  seen  quoted  as  perfectly  Homeric.  Per- 
fect simplicity  can  be  obtained  only  by  a  genius  of 
which  perfect  simplicity  is  an  essential  characteristic. 
So  true  is  this,  that  when  a  genius  essentially 
subtle,  or  a  genius  which,  from  whatever  cause,  is  in 
its  essence  not  truly  and  broadly  simple,  determines 
to  be  perfectly  plain,  determines  not  to  admit  a  shade 
of  subtlety  or  curiosity  into  its  expression,  it  cannot 
ever  then  attain  real  simplicity ;  it  can  only  attain  a 
semblance  of  simplicity.1  French  criticism,  richer  in 
its  vocabulary  than  ours,  has  invented  a  useful  word 

1  I  speak  of  poetic  genius  as  employing  itself  upon  narrative 
or  dramatic  poetry, — poetry  in  which  the  poet  has  to  go  out  of 
himself  and  to  create.  In  lyrical  poetry,  in  the  direct  expres- 
sion of  personal  feeling,  the  most  subtle  genius  may,  under  the 
momentary  pressure  of  passion,  express  itself  simply.  Even 
here,  however,  the  native  tendency  will  generally  be  discernible. 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  289 

to  distinguish  this  semblance  (often  very  beautiful 

and  valuable)  from  the  real  quality.     The  real  quality 

it  calls  simplicity  the  semblance  simplesse.     The  one  is 

natural  simplicity,  the  other  is  artificial  simplicity. 

What  is  called  simplicity  in  the   productions  of  a 

genius  essentially  not  simple,  is,  in  truth,  simplesse. 

The  two  are  distinguishable  from  one  another  the 

moment  they  appear  in  company.     For  instance,  let 

us  take  the  opening  of  the  narrative  in  Wordsworth's 

Michael : — 

"  Upon  the  forest-side  in  Grasmere  Vale 
There  dwelt  a  shepherd,  Michael  was  his  name  ; 
An  old  man,  stout  of  heart,  and  strong  of  limb. 
His  bodily  frame  had  been  from  youth  to  age 
Of  an  unusual  strength  ;  his  mind  was  keen, 
Intense,  and  frugal,  apt  for  all  affairs  ; 
And  in  his  shepherd's  calling  he  was  prompt 
And  watchful  more  than  ordinary  men." 

Now  let  us  take  the  opening  of  the  narrative  in  Mr. 
Tennyson's  Dora : — 

"  With  Farmer  Allan  at  the  farm  abode 
William  and  Dora.     William  was  his  son, 
And  she  his  niece.     He  often  looked  at  them, 
And  often  thought,  '  I'll  make  them  man  and  wife.'  " 

The  simplicity  of  the  first  of  these  passages  is  simpli- 

cU4;  that  of  the  second,  simplesse.     Let  us  take  the 

end  of  the  same  two  poems  :  first,  of  Michael ; — 

"  The  cottage  which  was  named  the  Evening  Star 
Is  gone, — the  ploughshare  has  been  through  the  ground 
On  which  it  stood  ;  great  changes  have  been  wrought 
In  all  the  neighbourhood  :  yet  the  oak  is  left 
That  grew  beside  their  door  :  and  the  remains 
Of  the  unfinished  sheepfold  may  be  seen 
Beside  the  boisterous  brook  of  Greemhead  Ghyll." 
VOL.  II.  U 


290  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

And  now,  of  Dora : — 

' '  So  those  four  abode 
Within  one  house  together  ;  and  as  years 
Went  forward,  Mary  took  another  mate  : 
But  Dora  lived  unmarried  till  her  death." 

A  heedless  critic  may  call  both  of  these  passages 
simple  if  he  will.  Simple,  in  a  certain  sense,  they 
both  are ;  but  between  the  simplicity  of  the  two  there 
is  all  the  difference  that  there  is  between  the  simplicity 
of  Homer  and  the  simplicity  of  Moschus. 

But — whether  the  hexameter  establish  itself  or 
not,  whether  a  truly  simple  and  rapid  blank  verse  be 
obtained  or  not,  as  the  vehicle  for  a  standard  English 
translation  of  Homer — I  feel  sure  that  this  vehicle 
will  not  be  furnished  by  the  ballad-form.  On  this 
question  about  the  ballad-character  of  Homer's  poetry, 
I  see  that  Professor  Blackie  proposes  a  compromise  : 
he  suggests  that  those  who  say  Homer's  poetry  is 
pure  ballad -poetry,  and  those  who  deny  that  it  is 
ballad-poetry  at  all,  should  split  the  difference  between 
them ;  that  it  should  be  agreed  that  Homer's  poems 
are  ballads  a  little,  but  not  so  much  as  some  have  said. 
I  am  very  sensible  to  the  courtesy  of  the  terms  in 
which  Mr.  Blackie  invites  me  to  this  compromise; 
but  I  cannot,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  accept  it ;  I  cannot 
allow  that  Homer's  poetry  is  ballad-poetry  at  all.  A 
want  of  capacity  for  sustained  nobleness  seems  to  me 
inherent  in  the  ballad-form,  when  employed  for  epic 
poetry.  The  more  we  examine  this  proposition,  the 
more  certain,  I  think,  will  it  become  to  us.  Let  us 
but  observe  how  a  great  poet,  having  to  deliver  a 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  291 

narrative  very  weighty  and  serious,  instinctively 
shrinks  from  the  ballad -form  as  from  a  form  not 
commensurate  with  his  subject-matter,  a  form  too 
narrow  and  shallow  for  it,  and  seeks  for  a  form  which 
has  more  amplitude  and  impressiveness.  Every  one 
knows  the  Lucy  Gray  and  the  Ruth  of  Wordsworth. 
Both  poems  are  excellent ;  but  the  subject-matter  of 
the  narrative  of  Ruth  is  much  more  weighty  and 
impressive  to  the  poet's  own  feeling  than  that  of  the 
narrative  of  Lucy  Gray,  for  which  latter,  in  its  un- 
pretending simplicity,  the  ballad -form  is  quite  ade- 
quate. Wordsworth,  at  the  time  he  composed  Ruth, — 
his  great  time,  his  annus  mirabilis,  about  1 800, — strove 
to  be  simple;  it  was  his  mission  to  be  simple;  he 
loved  the  ballad-form,  he  clung  to  it,  because  it  was 
simple.  Even  in  Ruth  he  tried,  one  may  say,  to  use 
it ;  he  would  have  used  it  if  he  could  :  but  the  gravity 
of  his  matter  is  too  much  for  this  somewhat  slight 
form ;  he  is  obliged  to  give  to  his  form  more  ampli- 
tude, more  augustness,  to  shake  out  its  folds. 

"  The  wretched  parents  all  that  night 
Went  shouting  far  and  wide  ; 
But  there  was  neither  sound  nor  sight 
To  serve  them  for  a  guide." 

That  is  beautiful,  no  doubt,  and  the  form  is  adequate 
to  the  subject-matter.     But  take  this,  on  the  other 

' '  I,  too,  have  passed  her  on  the  hills, 
Setting  her  little  water-mills 

By  spouts  and  fountains  wild  ; 
Such  small  machinery  as  she  turned, 
Ere  she  had  wept,  ere  she  had  mourned, 

A  young  and  happy  child." 


292  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

Who  does  not  perceive  how  the  greater  fulness  and 
weight  of  his  matter  has  here  compelled  the  true  and 
feeling  poet  to  adopt  a  form  of  more  volume  than  the 
simple  ballad-form  ? 

It  is  of  narrative  poetry  that  I  am  speaking ;  the 
question  is  about  the  use  of  the  ballad-form  for  this. 
I  say  that  for  this  poetry  (when  in  the  grand  style, 
as  Homer's  is)  the  ballad-form  is  entirely  inadequate; 
and  that  Homer's  translator  must  not  adopt  it,  because 
it  even  leads  him,  by  its  own  weakness,  away 
from  the  grand  style  rather  than  towards  it.  We 
must  remember  that  the  matter  of  narrative  poetry 
stands  in  a  different  relation  to  the  vehicle  which 
conveys  it, — is  not  so  independent  of  this  vehicle,  so 
absorbing  and  powerful  in  itself, — as  the  matter  of 
purely  emotional  poetry.  When  there  comes  in 
poetry  what  I  may  call  the  lyrical  cry,  this  trans- 
figures everything,  makes  everything  grand;  the 
simplest  form  may  be  here  even  an  advantage,  because 
the  flame  of  the  emotion  glows  through  and  through 
it  more  easily.  To  go  again  for  an  illustration  to 
Wordsworth ; — our  great  poet,  since  Milton,  by  his 
performance,  as  Keats,  I  think,  is  our  great  poet  by 
his  gift  and  promise ; — in  one  of  his  stanzas  to  the 
Cuckoo,  we  have  : — 

"  And  I  can  listen  to  thee  yet ; 
Can  lie  upon  the  plain 
And  listen,  till  I  do  beget 
That  golden  time  again. " 

Here  the  lyrical  cry,  though  taking  the  simple  ballad- 
form,  is  as  grand  as  the  lyrical  cry  coming  in  poetry 
of  an  ampler  form,  as  grand  as  the 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  293 

"  An  innocent  life,  yet  far  astray  !  " 

of  Ruth  ;  as  the 

"  There  is  a  comfort  in  the  strength  of  love  " 

of  Michael.  In  this  way,  by  the  occurrence  of  this 
lyrical  cry,  the  ballad-poets  themselves  rise  sometimes, 
though  not  so  often  as  one  might  perhaps  have  hoped, 
to  the  grand  style. 

' '  0  lang,  lang  may  their  ladies  sit, 
Wi'  their  fans  into  their  hand, 
Or  ere  they  see  Sir  Patrick  Spence 
Come  sailing  to  the  land. 

"  0  lang,  lang  may  the  ladies  stand, 
Wi'  their  gold  combs  in  their  hair, 
Waiting  for  their  ain  dear  lords, 
For  they'll  see  them  nae  mair." 

But  from  this  impressiveness  of  the  ballad-form,  when 
its  subject-matter  fills  it  over  and  over  again, — is, 
indeed,  in  itself,  all  in  all, — one  must  not  infer  its 
effectiveness  when  its  subject-matter  is  not  thus  over- 
powering, in  the  great  body  of  a  narrative. 

But,  after  all,  Homer  is  not  a  better  poet  than  the 
balladists,  because  he  has  taken  in  the  hexameter  a 
better  instrument ;  he  took  this  instrument  because 
he  was  a  different  poet  from  them  ;  so  different, — not 
only  so  much  better,  but  so  essentially  different, — 
that  he  is  not  to  be  classed  with  them  at  all.  Poets 
receive  their  distinctive  character,  not  from  their 
subject,  but  from  their  application  to  that  subject  of 
the  ideas  (to  quote  the  Excursion) 

"On  God,  on  Nature,  and  on  human  life," 
which  they  have  acquired   for  themselves.       In  the 


294  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMEE. 

ballad-poets  in  general,  as  in  men  of  a  rude  and  early 
stage  of  the  world,  in  whom  their  humanity  is  not 
yet  variously  and  fully  developed,  the  stock  of  these 
ideas  is  scanty,  and  the  ideas  themselves  not  very 
effective  or  profound.  From  them  the  narrative 
itself  is  the  great  matter,  not  the  spirit  and  signifi- 
cance which  underlies  the  narrative.  Even  in  later 
times  of  richly  developed  life  and  thought,  poets 
appear  who  have  what  may  be  called  a  battadist's 
mind ;  in  whom  a  fresh  and  lively  curiosity  for  the 
outward  spectacle  of  the  world  is  much  more  strong 
than  their  sense  of  the  inward  significance  of  that 
spectacle.  When  they  apply  ideas  to  their  narrative 
of  human  events,  you  feel  that  they  are,  so  to  speak, 
travelling  out  of  their  own  province:  in  the  best  of 
them  you  feel  this  perceptibly,  but  in  those  of  a  lower 
order  you  feel  it  very  strongly.  Even  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  efforts  of  this  kind, — even,  for  instance,  the 

"  Breathes  there  the  man  with  soul  so  dead," 

or  the 

"  0  woman  !  in  our  hours  of  ease," — 

even  these  leave,  I  think,  as  high  poetry,  much  to  be 
desired ;  far  more  than  the  same  poet's  descriptions 
of  a  hunt  or  a  battle.     But  Lord  Macaulay's 

' '  Then  out  spake  brave  Horatius, 

The  captain  of  the  gate  : 
'  To  all  the  men  upon  this  earth 
Death  corneth  soon  or  late,'  " 

(and  here,  since  I  have  been  reproached  with  under- 
valuing Lord  Macaulay's    Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  let 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  295 

me  frankly  say  that,  to  my  mind,  a  man's  power  to 
detect  the  ring  of  false  metal  in  those  Lays  is  a  good 
measure  of  his  fitness  to  give  an  opinion  about 
poetical  matters  at  all), — I  say,  Lord  Macaulay's 

' '  To  all  the  men  upon  this  earth 
Death  cometh  soon  or  late," 

it  is  hard  to  read  without  a  cry  of  pain.  But  with 
Homer  it  is  very  different.  This  "noble  barbarian," 
this  "savage  with  the  lively  eye," — whose  verse,  Mr. 
Newman  thinks,  would  affect  us,  if  we  could  hear  the 
living  Homer,  "  like  an  elegant  and  simple  melody 
from  an  African  of  the  Gold  Coast," — is  never  more 
at  home,  never  more  nobly  himself,  than  in  applying 
profound  ideas  to  his  narrative.  As  a  poet  he  belongs 
— narrative  as  is  his  poetry,  and  early  as  is  his  date 
— to  an  incomparably  more  developed  spiritual  and 
intellectual  order  than  the  balladists,  or  than  Scott 
and  Macaulay ;  he  is  here  as  much  to  be  distinguished 
from  them,  and  in  the  same  way,  as  Milton  is  to  be 
distinguished  from  them.  He  is,  indeed,  rather  to 
be  classed  with  Milton  than  with  the  balladists  and 
Scott ;  for  what  he  has  in  common  with  Milton — the 
noble  and  profound  application  of  ideas  to  life — is  the 
most  essential  part  of  poetic  greatness.  The  most 
essentially  grand  and  characteristic  things  of  Homer 
are  such  things  as — 

irX-qv  8',  oV  ou7rw  rts  enixObvios  /3por6s  &\\os, 
avopbs  TratOocpdvoio  ttotI  (Trd/xa  xelp'  optyeadai,1 

1  "And  I  have  endured — the  like  whereof  no  soul  upon  the 
earth  hath  yet  endured — to  carry  to  my  lips  the  hand  of  him 
who  slew  my  child." — Iliad,  xxiv.  505. 


296  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER, 

or  as — 

Kal  at,  ytpov,  to  trplv  fih  aKovo/iev  6\(l<.ov  dvai,1 

or  as — 

us  yap  €TT€K\ib<ravTo  6eol  decXolcn  Ppordiaiv, 
%ueiv  axvvp.£vovs  '  avrol  dt  t  &K7)dies  elaiv,2 

and  of  these  the  tone  is  given,  far  better  than  by  any 
thing  of  the  balladists,  by  such  things  as  the 

"  Io  no  piaugeva  :  si  dentro  impietrai : 
Piangevan  elli  .   .   ."3 

of  Dante  ;  or  the 

"  Fall'n  Cherub  !  to  be  weak  is  miserable  " 

of  Milton. 

I  suppose  I  must,  before  I  conclude,  say  a  word  or 
two  about  my  own  hexameters;  and  yet  really,  on 
such  a  topic,  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  trouble  you. 
From  those  perishable  objects  I  feel,  I  can  truly  say, 
a  most  Oriental  detachment.  You  yourselves  are 
witnesses  how  little  importance,  when  I  offered  them 
to  you,  I  claimed  for  them, — how  humble  a  function 
I  designed  them  to  fill.  I  offered  them,  not  as  speci- 
mens of  a  competing  translation  of  Homer,  but  as 
illustrations  of  certain  canons  which  I  had  been  try- 
ing to  establish  for  Homer's  poetry.     I  said  that  these 

1  "Nay  and  thou  too,  old  man,  in  times  past  wert,  as  we 
hear,  happy." — Iliad,  xxiv.  543.  In  the  original  this  line,  for 
mingled  pathos  and  dignity,  is  perhaps  without  a  rival  even  in 
Homer. 

3  "  For  so  have  the  gods  spun  our  destiny  to  us  wretched 
mortals,— that  we  should  live  in  sorrow  ;  but  they  themselves 
are  without  trouble." — Iliad,  xxiv.  525. 

3  "/wept  not:  so  of  stone  grew  I  within  -.—they  wept."— 
Hell,  xxxiii.  49  (Carlyle's  Translation,  slightly  altered). 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  297 

canons  they  might  very  well  illustrate  by  failing  as 
well  as  by  succeeding :  if  they  illustrate  them  in  any 
manner,  I  am  satisfied.  I  was  thinking  of  the  future 
translator  of  Homer,  and  trying  to  let  him  see  as 
clearly  as  possible  what  I  meant  by  the  combination 
of  characteristics  which  I  assigned  to  Homer's  poetry, 
— by  saying  that  this  poetry  was  at  once  rapid  in 
movement,  plain  in  words  and  style,  simple  and  direct 
in  its  ideas,  and  noble  in  manner.  I  do  not  sup 
pose  that  my  own  hexameters  are  rapid  in  movement, 
plain  in  words  and  style,  simple  and  direct  in  their 
ideas,  and  noble  in  manner ;  but  I  am  in  hopes  that 
a  translator,  reading  them  with  a  genuine  interest  in 
his  subject,  and  without  the  slightest  grain  of  per- 
sonal feeling,  may  see  more  clearly,  as  he  reads  them, 
what  I  mean  by  saying  that  Homer's  poetry  is  all 
these.  I  am  in  hopes  that  he  may  be  able  to  seize 
more  distinctly,  when  he  has  before  him  my 

"So  shone  forth,  in  front  of  Troy,  by  the  bed  of  the  Xantlms," 
or  my 

"Ah,  unhappy  pair,  to  Peleus  why  did  we  give  you  !  " 
or  my 
"So  he  spake,  and  drove  with  a  cry  his  steeds  into  battle,  " 

the  exact  points  which  I  wish  him  to  avoid  in  Cow- 
per's 

"  So  numerous  seemed  those  fires  the  banks  between," 

or  in  Pope's 

"  Unhappy  coursers  of  immortal  strain," 
or  in  Mr.  Newman's 
"He  spake,  and,  yelling,  held  a-front  bis  singledioofed  horses." 


298  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

At  the  same  time  there  may  be  innumerable  points  in 
mine  which  he  ought  to  avoid  also.  Of  the  merit  of 
his  own  compositions  no  composer  can  be  admitted 
the  judge. 

But  thus  humbly  useful  to  the  future  translator  I 
still  hope  my  hexameters  may  prove ;  and  he  it  is, 
above  all,  whom  one  has  to  regard.  The  general 
public  carries  away  little  from  discussions  of  this 
kind,  except  some  vague  notion  that  one  advocates 
English  hexameters,  or  that  one  has  attacked  Mr. 
Newman.  On  the  mind  of  an  adversary  one  never 
makes  the  faintest  impression.  Mr.  Newman  reads 
all  one  can  say  about  diction,  and  his  last  word  on 
the  subject  is,  that  he  "  regards  it  as  a  question  about 
to  open  hereafter,  whether  a  translator  of  Homer 
ought  not  to  adopt  the  old  dissyllabic  landis,  houndis, 
hartis  "  (for  lands,  hounds,  harts),  and  also  "  the  final 
en  of  the  plural  of  verbs  (we  dancen,  they  singen, 
etc.),"  which  "  still  subsists  in  Lancashire."  A  certain 
critic  reads  all  one  can  say  about  style,  and  at  the  end 
of  it  arrives  at  the  inference  that,  "  after  all,  there  is 
some  style  grander  than  the  grand  style  itself,  since 
Shakspeare  has  not  the  grand  manner,  and  yet  has 
the  supremacy  over  Milton ; "  another  critic  reads  all 
one  can  say  about  rhythm,  and  the  result  is,  that  he 
thinks  Scott's  rhythm,  in  the  description  of  the  death 
of  Marmion,  all  the  better  for  being  saccadS,  because 
the  dying  ejaculations  of  Marmion  were  likely  to  be 
"jerky."  How  vain  to  rise  up  early,  and  to  take  rest 
late,  from  any  zeal  for  proving  to  Mr.  Newman  that 
he  must  not,  in  translating  Homer,  say  houndis  and 


ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER.  299 

dancen  ;  or  to  the  first  of  the  two  critics  above  quoted, 
that  one  poet  may  be  a  greater  poetical  force  than 
another,  and  yet  have  a  more  unequal  style;  or  to 
the  second,  that  the  best  art,  having  to  represent 
the  death  of  a  hero,  does  not  set  about  imitating  his 
dying  noises  !  Such  critics,  however,  provide  for  an 
opponent's  vivacity  the  charming  excuse  offered  by 
Rivarol  for  his,  when  he  was  reproached  with  giving 
offence  by  it : — "  Ah  ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  no  one  con- 
siders how  much  pain  every  man  of  taste  has  had  to 
suffer,  before  he  ever  inflicts  any." 

It  is  for  the  future  translator  that  one  must  work. 
The  successful  translator  of  Homer  will  have  (or  he 
cannot  succeed)  that  true  sense  for  his  subject,  and 
that  disinterested  love  of  it,  which  are,  both  of  them, 
so  rare  in  literature,  and  so  precious ;  he  will  not  be 
led  off  by  any  false  scent ;  he  will  have  an  eye  for  the 
real  matter,  and,  where  he  thinks  he  may  find  any 
indication  of  this,  no  hint  will  be  too  slight  for  him, 
no  shade  will  be  too  fine,  no  imperfections  will  turn 
him  aside, — he  will  go  before  his  adviser's  thought, 
and  help  it  out  with  his  own.  This  is  the  sort  of 
student  that  a  critic  of  Homer  should  always  have  in 
his  thoughts;  but  students  of  this  sort  are  indeed  rare. 

And  how,  then,  can  I  help  being  reminded  what  a 
student  of  this  sort  we  have  just  lost  in  Mr.  Clough, 
whose  name  I  have  already  mentioned  in  these  lec- 
tures i  He,  too,  was  busy  with  Homer ;  but  it  is  not 
on  that  account  that  I  now  speak  of  him.  Nor  do  I 
speak  of  him  in  order  to  call  attention  to  his  qualities 
and  powers  in  general,  admirable  as  these  were.     I 


300  ON  TRANSLATING  HOMER. 

mention  him  because,  in  so  eminent  a  degree,  he  pos- 
sessed these  two  invaluable  literary  qualities, — a  true 
sense  for  his  object  of  study,  and  a  single-hearted  care 
for  it.  He  had  both ;  but  he  had  the  second  even 
more  eminently  than  the  first.  He  greatly  developed 
the  first  through  means  of  the  second.  In  the  study 
of  art,  poetry,  or  philosophy,  he  had  the  most  un- 
divided and  disinterested  love  for  his  object  in  itself, 
the  greatest  aversion  to  mixing  up  with  it  anything 
accidental  or  personal.  His  interest  was  in  literature 
itself ;  and  it  was  this  which  gave  so  rare  a  stamp  to 
his  character,  which  kept  him  so  free  from  all  taint  of 
littleness.  In  the  saturnalia  of  ignoble  personal  pas- 
sions, of  which  the  struggle  for  literary  success,  in  old 
and  crowded  communities,  offers  so  sad  a  spectacle, 
he  never  mingled.  He  had  not  yet  traduced  his 
friends,  nor  flattered  his  enemies,  nor  disparaged 
what  he  admired,  nor  praised  what  he  despised. 
Those  who  knew  him  well  had  the  conviction  that, 
even  with  time,  these  literary  arts  would  never  be 
his.  His  poem,  of  which  I  before  spoke,  has  some 
admirable  Homeric  qualities ; — out-of-doors  freshness, 
life,  naturalness,  buoyant  rapidity.  Some  of  the  ex- 
pressions in  that  poem, — "Dangerous  Corrievreckan 
.  .  .  Where  roads  are  unknown  to  Loch  Nevish" — come 
back  now  to  my  ear  with  the  true  Homeric  ring. 
But  that  in  him  of  which  I  think  oftenest  is  the 
Homeric  simplicity  of  his  literary  life. 

THE  END  OF  VOL.  II. 


DATE  DUE 

m    1  2  1976 

flECI 

)     lllkl    1   0      ir 

7-7 

JUI1    X  O      JO 

77 

OE 

;  .'ii9tii 

4 

m 1  n  ms 

1 

REC'U  N( 

)V  1  9  l3a 

i 

NOV 

1 4  1988 

mnr\ 

NOV  lj 
REC!D  0 

[  1989 

r  1      2  4     198 

Q 

j 

ML  1 

11992 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

AA      000  199  912    7 


■  I 


■ 


■ 


